


Ayane

by Azia



Series: Sentimental Schoolgirl Simulator [2]
Category: Yandere Simulator (Video Game)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Cannibalism, Child Abuse, F/F, F/M, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Mental Health Issues, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 21:26:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 43,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7949743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azia/pseuds/Azia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pink fish swim bloodied waters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pink

**Author's Note:**

> **must _lovelorn_ be read before _ayane_ in order for this story to make sense?** yes. i can promise you that this sequel will make zero sense [without reading its precedent](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5939214/chapters/13656324), so i encourage you to read it first. ♡
> 
> anyways, thank you for reading _lovelorn_ and seeking out its sequel. may _ayane_ live up to its name.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _pink (pink) [n.] — cotton candy; majin buu; fleeing to other lands; a girl who makes one want to rob a bank with no mask on and a rusty revolver._

>   ** _スーパーバブルガム★CHUM PLUS!_**
> 
> ♡ thu. – 25.dec.13 / 22:45 ♡  
>  _> chat connected!_
> 
> _**info_chan6** : Hello._  
>  _**insertusernamehere** : Who is this?_  
>  _**info_chan6** : I am Info-chan, and that’s all you need to know._

Aishi Ayane raised an eyebrow at her phone screen, a tiny action that some might be surprised to see. She cocked her head to the side only briefly before rolling her eyes up toward her bedroom ceiling. _Bingo_. She quickly exited out of the chat app and dialed the number in. She flipped her hair over her shoulder (she really only took it out of its trademark ponytail when the day was done) and made herself more comfortable on her bed. Looks like this Christmas wasn’t going to be so boring after all.

Maybe.

Her call was picked up immediately. “Aw,” a voice said. Girlish, it sounded young too. “How’d you discover me so fast?”

“Because you wanted me to.”

“You sound excited.” Ayane shrugged. She was sure that this “Info” could see her. She had managed to pick the camera out instantly. “But you’re observant. I like that.”

Did they try to change the subject? Ayane tried again: “You wanted me to discover you.”

“Maybe, maybe not.” The voice laughed, definitely a practiced girly sound. “Ask away. I know you’re just absolutely dying for answers right now.”

Ayane lied on her back. “Not really.”

“Oh? Then you don’t want to know who I am? I’m willing to let you know. I want things to be different this time.”

“…Different?”

“I managed to catch your attention with that, hm? Okay, okay. I’ll ask questions first then to get us warmed up, huh? So, alone on Christmas—what’s it like?”

“I have spent more Christmases alone than with my family at this point.”

“Oh? That’s really sad, actually. I’ve never spent a Christmas alone.”

“Good for you.”

“No need for the sarcasm. I don’t really have a choice whether I want to or not, and trust me, there are times that I really… don’t want to.” There was some shuffling on the line. “So, how did you find this number?”

“It was in the bio of the profile that you messaged me with.”

“What do you think about that, me just leaving my information up for the taking for you?”

“You wanted me to discover you.” Hadn’t Ayane said that before? She glanced up at the camera again. Her eyes remained steady on the lens. It was small, unnoticeable to those who weren’t looking for it, but it felt like a human pair of eyes boring into her. She could tell something was amiss since the beginning of winter break when the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end the moment she walked into her bedroom.

“Bingo!” A laugh, no a _giggle_ , but it wasn’t demeaning. If this person was trying to set themselves up as an antagonist, they weren’t doing a very good job at it, Ayane thought. “Pretty _and_ smart. Hm, what else, what else…? Oh!” More shuffling. “I think you know what I want to talk about first.” Ayane was actually willing to humor this stranger, though it might not have sounded like so from the sarcasm dripping between her lips and the clear unenthusiastic air about her. “But first, please stop glaring at me like that. It’s making me a little uncomfortable.”

“Fine.” Ayane turned away from the camera and faced her pillow. “Talk.”

“Well, at first I wasn’t sure how to go about this, but I think I’m doing a pretty okay job since you could’ve just hung up on me or not even call at all. I planted some seeds around, so you could ease into it and so I could have some time to prepare myself. But let’s start with the basics: your siblings.”

“What about them?”

“You never knew them, right?”

“No.”

“How unfortunate.” A sympathetic click of the tongue. “But I want to offer you something that they couldn’t accomplish: success.”

Ayane settle her phone on the top of her pillow and pressed for it to be on speaker. She sat up and crossed her legs. “Why?”

“You want something and I want something—simple as that. What happened with your brother and sister: messy. Messy from start to finish. It was manipulation, on top of manipulation, on top of even more manipulation. A group of people tricking each other and then tricking another couple that was already tricking each other in the first place? Messy. I can’t think of another word to describe it. But for you, I promise none of that. I wanted to lay all of my cards on the table and be upfront with you right away.”

Ayane paused. She only said, “Okay,” so that the person would continue. She was almost interested in seeing where this was going to go.

“Here is everything I know about you: you’re Aishi Ayane, your older siblings were Aishi Ayano and Yande, twins arrested for multiple murders back in ’98 and they were executed a few days after their eighteenth birthdays, I believe. You were born in Kumamoto City and lived with your elder family members for a little while before you were moved to Rancho Palos Verdes, California with the American side of your family. And then your dad ran away to there and your mother discovered him. They stayed for a little while during Ayane and Yande’s trials and then moved back to Buraza Town with you after they were executed.” They took in a deep breath. “Okay, am I missing anything so far?”

“No.” _Unfortunately_.

“Good, good. I put in my research. You have familial hypercholesterolaemia—FH—and nearly had a heart attack when you were in California, but you take medication and maintain it. It doesn’t stop you from being as active, if not more, than how much Aishi Ayano was. I mean, I heard that the girl could throw around dead bodies like it was nothing.” Ayane chose not to respond to that. “You attended Little Sakura Elementary School once you moved here and were in the same class as Kuwata Yukari—the girl who was murdered by her friend in 2007. And the case still remains unsolved to this day.”

“Yes, that’s true also.”

“And you have a crush on Yamada Hanako also. Even though she was older than you and in the next class up, she was still a good friend of yours and Kuwata too. What a coincidence that she’s the cousin of Yamada Taro, the boy that your sister had a ‘crush’ on.”

“Is that all?”

“Oh? You’re not going to ask ‘how’ or anything?”

“I don’t really care.”

“I figured you would say that. Well, I based all of this off of the old saying ‘history repeats itself’ and it really looks like it has. I mean, with an Aishi falling for a Yamada again, I know that I just _had_ to hop on the opportunity. It’s practically calling my name.” A sigh. “Anyway, time for my side of the tale: I was there. I was there when Kuwata was killed.” Ayane’s eyes shot up to the camera in the corner of her room again. A tiny red light blinked back at her as if in response.

“You were there,” Ayane repeated, her gaze unwavering.

“Ah, you’re given me _the look_ again. I wouldn’t lie to you, and I’m only hanging this blackmail thing way high up in the air, and besides, you have dirt on me also—more specifically on my family. Do you know who Kuzuryu Sachiko is?” Ayane looked away from the camera. “I told you, I’m laying my cards out here.”

“Yes.”

“Who was she, then?”

“A student who attended Akademi when it was still a high school.”

“There’s more to it than that. Come on, now.”

“She is the headmaster’s daughter, the one that didn’t get killed.”

“And?”

“And she was one of the last people to visit Ayano and Yande before their executions.”

“Any thoughts about her?”

“I like to think that she was the third person who was working with Ayano and Yande that Yande refused to disclose the name of for reasons that I cannot figure out.”

“…Bingo.” Another sigh. “Now we both know each other’s secrets then. So, you want Yamada-senpai and I want to get rid of the people who want her—all except for you, of course.”

“If you are suggesting that I get rid our rivals, then I am going to have to refuse, no matter if you blackmail me or not. Anyone is going to point their finger toward the Aishi when it comes to murder.”

“Not if you’re careful. Not when you have me. I promise you, I don’t want to hurt you and I don’t have any hidden ulterior motives. I’ve been hurt by this specific set of people that just happen to overlap with the people who are going to certainly hurt you if you don’t find a way to get closer to Yamada-senpai sooner rather than later.” Ayane shrugged. “Still not convinced? Oh well. At least I can say that I tried, right? I guess you’re not anything like Ayano after all.”

Ayane cocked her head to the side again. Had she heard that right? “I am nothing like Ayano,” she hissed between her teeth. “I am _Ayane_ , not _Ayano_. In fact, I’m better than her in every way possible.”

“Prove it.” Ayane could practically hear the smirk.

“You’re irking me.”

“I know the thought has crossed your mind before. And this time I can produce proof on why you need to target these people. You’re not going to just blindly follow anything that I spit at you, not like your siblings did. We are going to do this right. Are you convinced now?”

“Potentially speaking, if we do get caught then I am not going to protect you like Yande had with your mother.”

“Throwing me under the bus, huh? That’s only fair. Tell me what my name is? I don’t want to keep any information from you.”

“Info-chan Two.”

“You can call me that if you want, but I was talking about my real name. Just search the phone number and it should come up. Anyways, I don’t think you’re fully convinced yet, which is good. I think Ayano jumped on the chance at protecting her Senpai without hesitation, but you’re a little more cautious, a little more careful. You and Ayano may be alike physically speaking, but I could already tell differences between the two of you way before now.”

“Like what?”

“Well, starting off, you two have the same facial features, same physiques, same hair, but she was definitely more adaptable than you are. Maybe it’s because of her brother. The two could confide in each other, bounce off of each other, and trained each other, but you have had no one. You’re definitely more antisocial and reclusive and awkward, but I can help you with that. But you’re smarter. You’re more aware of your surroundings and the people around you. They didn’t care or pay attention to anything of that, and that’s what my mother had to teach them. You’re definitely more of a blank slate than they were, but I can work with you.”

Ayane put the phone off speaker and held it against her ear again. “So, you like me because I’m empty.”

“Don’t put it like that.”

“You were the one that did.”

“My apologizes then. Anyways, if you look underneath the Christmas tree you can see that I had a present delivered to you. If you’re still disinterested, then put the gift outside of your window and take the camera in your room down by tomorrow and I’ll understand and I promise to leave you alone then. But if I still receive the footage of your room by tomorrow, then I will be calling you again. Okay?”

“You say that these people could be hurting me and Senpai?”

“Yes, if you don’t put a stop to them. But I don’t want to give out just too much information without you fully committing first. And I also promise to give you… _full creative liberties_ , if you will, but I still have to schedule a deadline though.”

“I see.”

“Good. Now is the perfect opportunity.”

“And what will you be doing in all of this exactly?”

“I will be the brain to your brawn. I will be the one who watches, who helps, who makes sure that you don’t stumble along the way. I only have your, my, and Yamada-senpai’s best interests in mind, honestly.”

“I’ll remember this.”

“It sounds like you’re turning around, but I can understand if you still want to decline my offer. I don’t think I put up a very convincing argument after all.” A sigh. “Goodnight and Merry Christmas. I’m sorry that you have to spend it alone.” Ayane hung up the phone then.

Perhaps it was curiosity that strung her feet along to the living-room. Her parents had set up a nice tree and decorated it too before going off to wherever-the-hell they were now. History really was repeating itself. When Ayano and Yande were around this age, their parents had left during Christmastime thus leaving the twins to their own devious devices. This seemed somewhat promising though. This time, the accomplice wanted to build a foundation of trust and mutual understanding with her in the beginning instead of a “messy” mass of “manipulation.” But wasn’t Ayane still technically being manipulated here? She did receive a threat of blackmail, but then the other had offered up a piece of information also, so she guess that canceled the manipulation out.

Ayane let the thought run through her mind as she settled down in front of the tree. There was a photograph of herself in elementary school on the front of it. A hole had been punched through the top and twine was threaded through so it could be hung up alongside the bulbs and lights. Ayane was standing in the middle of Kuwata and Yamada. Kuwata held the peace sign in front of Ayane’s face and gave a wide grin, displaying her missing top and bottom teeth, while Yamada had sheepishly smiled off to the side. The only reason that Ayane still kept the photo and hung it up on the tree was because she “missed her poor dear friend Kuwata oh so much” and because it was a reminder of exactly when she had fallen for Yamada and when Yamada had fallen out with her. Kuwata was a mistake. The girl should have never come between them, and even in her death she managed to hammer the final nail in and drive them apart.

Ayane traced her finger on Yamada’s side of the photograph now. Soon, she thought to herself. This could be viewed as a blessing, a calling almost. If this actually worked out then there would be more photos in the feature. Maybe even spending less Christmases alone. Maybe even kissing underneath the mistletoe, doing the things that couples did…

A shiver went down Ayane’s spine. She forced her eyes away from the picture and to the bottom of the tree. A moderately-sized package tied up all nice in pink wrapping paper was there, as promised. It was the only present underneath the tree. How depressing. Supposedly Ayane was going to receive gifts from all members of the family soon. She had been passed around from the elders to the Americans, so a variety of birthday and Christmas presents was a consequence of that.

Ayane carefully tore her fingernails along the side of the tape that held the paper together. She didn’t bother to rumple it as she discarded it off to the side. She opened the package and pulled out the contents one by one, methodically, and placed the items in front of her, using the lights around the tree to see them all.

First was a sword, a small one, and then a knife. It reminded her of her mother’s knife. Apparently the twins had used the knife frequently during their crimes, so their mother had the knife immediately shipped back to the elders in Kumamoto City for safekeeping. Not like Ayane had any plans to use it… until now.

There was a skirt, unfolding it revealed a few hidden holsters inside. It was in the style of her uniform skirts too and would perfectly go along with her outfits without a hitch. There was a picture too, one that Ayane had never seen before. She held it up to the light for a better look. It was a picture from back in elementary school too. It was easy to tell. It was the same setting as the photo on the tree, the same exact position even. Kuwata’s toothy grin was covered by a hand, but the look in her eyes said all, focused on the gleam of the knife held above her head.

Ayane thought back to her classroom and its layout. The three girls had taken the photograph while their teacher’s back was to the back wall, where the closet that held the cleaning supplies was located. There were slits in the door, almost like it was a locker, just big enough for someone to successfully hide inside of the closet without feeling too trapped in perhaps. And just big enough for someone to hide inside and sneak a photograph need be too.

Ayane looked back at her cellphone and the number that she had called. She had basically been invited to do some research. A name popped up instantly when she searched it: _Hashimoto Seigo_. “Seigo,” Ayane found herself whispering. What type of name—? She knew a Hashimoto Saigo, but not a Hashimoto Seigo. Interesting. 

It was a younger girl in a wheelchair dressed all pretty in pink with a crisply ironed dress and a perfectly straightened collar. Her hair was cut straight across the shoulders and bangs across the eyelashes. A princess haircut seemed suitable. Her hands were folded in her lap and another pair was on the handles of the wheelchair. A redhead with close cropped hair and red glasses. Ayane couldn’t forget that face. She had seen class pictures of her older siblings. She knew good and well who the headmaster’s daughters were. She had no choice with Yande killing one and the other suddenly visiting them before the executions. It was almost difficult to believe that such a prim and proper girl was the product of such a person, but perhaps it was the opposite of Ayane versus Ayano. Ayane and Ayano: alike physically, different personally. Info-chan One and Info-chan Two: different physically, alike personally.

Ayane remembered the small girl tucked in her wheelchair from the corner of the hall when everybody had discovered the body. The look of shock on her face as she pressed herself into her two-headed teddy bear and squeezed her eyes shut. It was a good act, Ayane had thought then, as she had been putting on her own, but fake recognized fake.

She returned to the present’s contents. There was another photograph inside. Ayane immediately dropped the other picture she was holding. _Senpai_. Yamada Taro had been brought up in the conversation. Ayane saw photos of him too. Silky black hair and naturally delicate and prepossessing facial features seemed to be a theme with the Yamada’s. Senpai went back and forth between growing her hair and cutting it. Before winter break, she had gotten a haircut just about the ears after allowing it to grow down to the shoulders for autumn. It didn’t matter. Anything suited her.

This picture was interesting. It was Senpai inside of her house. Ayane had only visited it once in elementary school for a birthday party sleepover and she never returned since, but it looked like not much had changed since then. The timestamp read that the picture had just been taken in the morning. It was a screenshot of camera footage it looked like. Senpai was sitting at her vanity – Ayane definitely remembered it because she wondered why such a young girl needed such a heavy, adult piece of furniture, but it didn’t deter her feelings anyway – with a towel wrapped around her body, looking in the mirror and surveying the cosmetic paraphernalia scattered everywhere. It was such an intimate photograph and an image that Ayane craved to see in her real life ever since she had first set eyes on Senpai and finally learned what the definition of “emotion” was.

Info-chan Two wore pink on her skin. It hung off of her thin bones and tied up in her hair during the elementary days and probably still did now, sans the pigtails that had been replaced with a proper princess cut. But Senpai _was_ pink. It embodied her aura and her personality. She gave it off in waves being the true shocking pink girl that she was. Senpai’s lips, cheeks, fingertips, the way that she would softly smile and flutter her eyelashes – pure pink matter. It was the only way that Ayane could describe it.

She clutched the photograph to her chest. At first, she thought that people going to hurt Senpai was simply a bluff, but Ayane would do anything to protect her beloved. Just like Ayano did with her senpai, and their mother did with their father, and their grandmother with their grandfather, and so forth. It was in her blood, more prevalent than the damned cholesterol that cursed her streams.

To get another glimpse of this pink matter, even for just a second, Ayane would do anything. She had proven it before and she would prove it again.

❋

“Ah, the feeds are still up. Let me guess, it was the photos that did you through?”

“Perhaps.”

“You know, I was reading through accounts from other teachers and students and police officers and whatnot and even managed to find the confession videos from the twins and I’ve come to the conclusion that you have this combination of Yande’s wittiness yet Ayano’s bluntness when it comes to speaking. You’re not particularly the best at connecting with your peers, yes, but you definitely have the potential. You’re honest and have somewhat of a sense of humor actually.”

“You speak about me like I’m some type of experiment.”

“That’s a good way to put it actually! The Ayane Experiment is underway, and we have the entirety of winter break to plan. So, if you look out the window I had a hit list delivered. Let’s get started.”


	2. fish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _fish (fish) [n.] — a cold-blooded animal; get out of the pool; comes in boxes._

“Yan-chan, you can check on the auditorium if you want?”

“Okay.”

“Great! Okay, so, sorry we’re cutting into everyone’s winter break, but we all knew this was coming, right? We always have to come in during all off our breaks to sanitize stuff before school starts up again. It’s the joys of being on the Health Committee!” Collective laughter – Ayane didn’t join in. “And I think that’s it! You guys know the drill by now. Just grab your suppli—ah, Gogo-chan, is that you?” Everyone turned around. Ayane didn’t. She had become well-acquainted with “Gogo” over the past few days.

“Yes, it’s me! Oh, are you all meeting up? I’m sorry to interrupt you all.” The girl was wheeling over to the group now. Ayane sighed before turning around to face her.

Hashimoto Saigo, better known as “Gogo,” had basically risen to become a sort of mascot of Akademi Academy. The girl was homeschooled to Ayane’s knowledge, a third-year junior high student, and she frequently hung around the academy as her grandfather, Kuzuryu Seijin, was the headmaster. She was the daughter of Kuzuryu Sachiko – otherwise known as “Info-chan” or “Info-6” (or better yet: the one that Aishi Yande let get away).

The rest of the members of the Health Committee were all cooing over Gogo. She was so adorable, her haircut was so smart, her clothes were so pink and cute, her wheelchair looked so polished. Ayane only hung in the back, tightly gripping the handle of the bucket that contained her cleaning supplies. Gogo kept tossing glances here and there at her. “Um, Aishi-senpai?” She called out. Ayane looked her in the eye then. She had never paid much attention to the girl before. Whenever she saw the girl rolling down the hallway, she never thought much of it – from elementary school to now.

“Yes?” Ayane felt like calling her “Gogo-chan” would be too much. They were in some type of twisted partnership now of Gogo watching behind the scenes as Ayane laid down the blows.

“You’re going to the auditorium, right? Would it be okay if I went with you? The, um, the clubroom that I like to hang around is nearby, so I thought that maybe we could walk together.” Ayane had no other option to nod. Denying one of Gogo-chan’s requests was an act of blasphemy. Gogo waved the other girls away before they went off together.

“Under the number I looked up, the name came up as ‘Hashimoto Seigo,’ not ‘Hashimoto Saigo.’”

“Oh, you’re just bringing this up now?” The hallways of the school were dimmed. Each classroom and clubroom they passed was dark and vacant. It wasn’t uncommon for clubs and committees to meet at times during break, but it looked like it was really only the Health Committee in the building for the day. “It’s just a little spelling error. Don’t worry about it.”

“How does someone get two characters completely wrong?”

“Well, ‘Seigo’ and ‘Saigo’ sound alike, and ‘Saigo’ isn’t a name and ‘Seigo’ is, so…” Gogo shrugged.

“’Seigo’ is a boys’ name, though.”

“Oh, well. I’ll be sure to have it changed since it bugs you so much.” They turned a corner. “Can you come with me for a bit before you go to the auditorium?”

“That’s what I was expecting to do.”

“Of course.” Ayane looked up to see that they were entering the room for the Anime Club. “This club disbanded years ago,” Gogo said as she turned on the lights, “and I told my grandfather that I wanted to use it from now on.” The room was fairly spacious and was decorated with posters from various shows and movies that Ayane had heard people chatter about in the background of her mind but had never taken the time to watch before. “Did you know that this room is actually a part of the old building? The auditorium is a new edition along with a lot of other things while the school was being renovated from a high school to an academy, but they didn’t demolish the entire building and started something new, they just added on to the old one.” Gogo wheeled over to the center of the room. Ayane closed the door behind her. She found herself looking down at the blue latex gloves that covered her hands. She was going to be familiar with the garment in the future, it seemed like.

Ayane didn’t like having to present herself in such a gimmick to her Info-chan. She was dressed up in the uniform that the Health Committee was permitted to wear. The other members liked color to their clothes, but Ayane wore a simple white one – a nurse’s outfit complete with a smoothed down collar and a cap, like they were old-fashioned nurses. Everyone had a costume to wear, an outer skin that they presented to the world. Ayane, with her gloves and dress, was hidden amongst the Health Committee members for today.

Looking at Gogo, as the girl was typing away at one of the keyboards laid across the table in front of them (it was admittedly an impressive setup of computers and screens and other things that Ayane couldn’t think of the name for – it didn’t matter, Gogo was the one who had to be tech savvy of the two of them), Ayane wondered if the girl was wearing a protective skin too. Surely, getting one’s hair cut to such perfection and straight angles could be cumbersome after time. And her outfit for the day – _that she was still wearing in the evening_ – of a frilly white shirt with a large collar that stretched over the shoulders of a heavy looking baby blue jacket and a pink skirt that was high on the waist – surely too much. Too much for Ayane anyway. Yes, it had to be some type of setup in its own way. Gogo going around the school, entertaining students and running errands and eating with them and sympathizing with them and doing whatever the hell else she did, was surely some type of setup. No one was that nice.

“There,” Gogo pointed to the oldest looking computer in the bunch, “are only three people that you have to focus on from now on: Kizana Sunobu, Shidesu Oroso, and Saiko Megami.” The aforementioned girls’ pictures popped up on the screen.

Ayane nodded. The names were familiar, but she usually disassociated people from their names. She thought of people by their role, and if they demanded otherwise, then she would think of them by their surnames at the most. “The Drama Club president, the gang leader, and the Student Council president,” she named off. Yes, she knew them. She knew their types. The three had been exactly who Ayane was thinking of as her rivals – the ones who had gotten too close to Yamada for her liking. “Who’s first, Hashimoto?”

“Did you just call me ‘Hashimoto’?” Gogo frowned, but she only shook her head. “I named them in order. Your deadline is at the end of the month for each. Go crazy.” She then brought up what appeared to be security camera footage of the school. From Ayane’s knowledge, there were no security cameras in the school though. The headmaster had refused to put them up in the nineties during the havoc that the Aishi twins caused then, and refused to put them up now. Gogo seemed to sense Ayane’s thoughts. “They’re just some cameras I set around myself,” she said. “You see there? Kizana is in the auditorium right now, practicing for her play. Perfect timing. What do you know about her? Let’s fact check.”

“Kizana Sunobu isn’t her real name, it’s Kizawa Suzuko. I only know this because we went to elementary school together. She moved away during junior high and then when she came to school here, she demanded that everyone call her by a different name.”

“Correct. It isn’t an official name change though. I checked around. Legally speaking, she’s still Kizawa Suzuko.”

“I know that in the first year of school she grew an obsession with Kokona Haruka. Kokona was one of Ayano and Yande’s rivals, I believe—a member of the Drama Club also.”

“Did you know that during break, Kizana went to Tokyo to have her nose redone to look just like Kokona Haruka’s?”

Ayane could only shrug. “Her obsession holds no bounds.”

“Right. Anything else you know about her?”

“I know that she’s planning a production of the ‘forbidden play’ at the end of the month.”

“Ah, _Himitsu no Kingyo_ , or _The Secret of the Goldfish_. What do you know about that?”

“I know that it was an original play written by a student of the school in 1998. Kokona Haruka and Sora Sosuke were planning a production in late January, before Ayano and Yande killed them during their rehearsal.”

“And since the main actor and actress died while practicing for their play, it’s now been known as the ‘forbidden’ or ‘cursed play’ and no one has even touched the script for the last sixteen years.” Gogo let the picture of Kizana take over the screen. “Until now.”

“I’ve also caught Kizana stalking me on multiple occasions. She messages and talks to me sometimes, but it’s usually annoying.”

“Why do you think she does that?”

Ayane felt like she was talking too much. She crossed her arms and shifted her weight from foot to foot. “I think it’s because she associates me with Ayano and Yande. Lately, she keeps sending me invites to the play and keeps inviting me to rehearsals.”

“Do you think that maybe she wants what happened in ’98 to happen to her now, since she wants to be Kokona Haruka so much?” All Ayane could do was shrug. “I’ve seen her putting invites into Yamada-senpai’s locker.” Gogo brought up an image of Kokona Haruka side-by-side with Kizana’s. “Look at that. Same hair, same noses now.” There was still a couple of drastic differences between the two girls. There was a natural smile on Kokona’s face, but an almost sinister smirk marked Kizana’s. Also despite everything, Kizana still wore the rose hairclips that Ayane remembered her typically wearing throughout elementary school. It looked like some things never changed.

“I should go now.”

“I’ll be watching.” Ayane only nodded again before leaving.

❋

“It’s poetic justice right? I mean, a Yamada and an Aishi going to school at the same time, and I—the reincarnation of Kokona Haruka-dono, herself—just _has_ to hold a production of _Himitsu no Kingyo_. It’s only in my divine right.”

“Of course.” It was taking everything for Ayane to not hiss her words between her teeth. How could a person be so irritating? Ayane didn’t pay much attention to Kizana in elementary school (not like she paid anyone much attention other than Yamada, anyway), but she didn’t recall Kizana being pure poison to the ears.

“It’s a full circle!” The girl was laughing now. She gestured her arms out to the stage she was standing on. Ayane was standing in the booths, spraying them, wiping them down, making everything healthy and safe to committee standards.

“Right.”

“If I can get Yamada-senpai and you together to watch this ‘cursed’ play of mine, then… then…” Kizana jumped down from the stage and began to laugh again. “It’ll be perfect! Absolutely perfect! Like, I’ve been trying so hard.” The joyous look immediately left Kizana’s face and she pouted. “I’ve been trying really, really hard, but I don’t know if Yamada-senpai’s coming around. You’re going right, Yan-chan?”

“I might be, yeah.”

“Do you think that maybe you could get Yama—”

“No promises.”

“Aw, Yan-chan, please? Why don’t you wanna help me out? We go way back like you and Yamada-senpai do, right?” The girl wasn’t wrong, but Ayane didn’t want to agree.

“You left during junior high.”

“That’s because my father got a job in Amakusa, not like I could help it! But I came back, right? Right, Yan-chan?”

“Right,” Ayane sighed.

“And me coming back, it’s like a sign. I was _destined_ to start here. Amakusa was… Amakusa was just pure cancer to a rising star such as myself.” She smiled as she pointed to herself. “I deserve better. Buraza Town might be a basic beach city with too many snooty rich kids—” Ayane had to snort at that – Kizana literally changed her name to “Sonobu” to purposefully give off a snooty vibe “—but I couldn’t be around so many churches and old people. Bad vibes.”

“Of course.”

“’Of course,’ she says.” Kizana huffed. “These lights, this stage,” she pounded her fist against the poor wooden floor of the stage, “were meant to be _mine_. Remember that.”

“How can I forget?” Ayane decided to play nice again. “You were the best one in our elementary school play.” Kizana immediately beamed at that. Boosting the girl’s already humongous ego seemed to be the quickest way to her good side.

“True, true. Even from back then, I knew I was talented. I’m not the president of this sorry excuse of a Drama Club now for nothing.” Ayane only got out a new bottle of disinfectant. A couple more seats to go and she could leave. Hopefully, Gogo would be pleased. “Hm, now that I think about it, I don’t like a ‘might.’ That’s wishy-washy. Are you going or not, yes or no?”

“I—”

“Ugh, you’re pulling my leg! I’ll take fifty-percent off on your ticket and it’s free if Yamada-senpai shows up. How about that?”

“Well…” Ayane straightened her back as she finished cleaning the last seat. “I can’t turn down an offer like that.”

“I knew you couldn’t!” Arms were being wrapped around Ayane suddenly. “That’s what friends are for!”

“Of course.”

❋

“That hug was cute.”

“Shut up.” Ayane set down her cleaning supplies in the corner of the clubroom before closing the door.

“Aw, don’t be mean.” There was something different on all of the screens in front of Gogo. Ayane looked over the girl’s shoulder. “Slowly, but surely, I’m getting some of the camera footage that the Info’s in the nineties had put around your house. My mother, um…” Gogo cracked her knuckles before returning to her typing. “Sorry. _Info-chan_ really keeps everything under lock and key, but I’m getting it. Here, read this.” She pointed to a screen on her far left. “A little while ago, I went through some of the guidance counselor’s notes. She has quite a few on Kizana.”

“’Histrionic personality disorder?’” Ayane read aloud.

“Yup. Histrionic personality disorder coupled with a mild form of schizophrenia. That’s a mouthful. At first, the guidance counselor thought that Kizana had some unspecified delusional disorder that would explain her sudden obsession over Kokona Haruka and her holier-than-thou attitude. She wasn’t like this during elementary school.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. Ayane wondered if Gogo might have had some type of friendship with the girl then, back when Kizana was Kizawa Suzuko, back when she wasn’t as annoying or showy, back when she was only a simple girl who liked her rose hairclips and talking about big actresses in big movies. “Apparently, during her first year, Kizana tried to steal the shrine that’s dedicated to Kokona Haruka and the counselor caught her.” Ah, the shrine room: a room dedicated to the victims of the Akademi High School Incident of 1998. “That’s why they were having these sessions for a little while before they stopped at the beginning of this school year. The counselor looked into her past and found out about these personality disorders that Kizana had been diagnosed with before. Back then, things weren’t so bad, but recently, she suddenly worsened. And it looks like Kizana’s father didn’t like the counselor getting into Kizana’s business either and asked for her to leave them alone.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why is her father denying that something is wrong with his daughter?”

“Kizana’s father…” The way that Gogo suddenly stopped typing didn’t go amiss in Ayane’s eyes. “Sorry. I’m not quite sure. His name is, uh, Kizawa Tatsuya. I can look into it if you want?”

“No, it’s fine.” Something about Kizawa Tatsuya had made the girl pause. But why? Ayane wasn’t sure if she wanted to take her time to wrap her head around it or not.

“I also know that Kizana’s mother, Kizawa Yasuko, died during Kizana’s second year of junior high in Amakusa. I think I pinpointed that a little bit after that was when Kizana started to change, because she took a week off from school and when she came back I found detentions being issued to her because she was being hostile to other students and the guidance counselor there was confused over why she wanted to be called ‘Kizana Sunobu’ all of a sudden. What else, what else…” Gogo began to scroll down a few documents on one computer screen. “Oh yeah. Kizana’s mother’s name, Yasuko, is a trauma trigger for her. I found out that there was a big case about her too. Apparently Kizawa Yasuko was murdered by one of the Kizawa’s and Kizana saw the whole thing.”

“I’m guessing that this all links back to Kizawa Yasuko then—the name changing, the obsession with another girl who was murdered, the sudden change of behavior.”

“Yeah, maybe that’s it.” Gogo turned to face Ayane. She blinked, fluttering the hair that hung just above her eyes. “Kizana has this odd combination of being both popular and having a low reputation here. So, if you plan to bully her or turn the students against her or anything, I don’t think she’ll care too much about that.”

“I didn’t have anything like that in mind anyway.”

“Oh? Okay, you can take it as food for thought then.” Gogo shrugged. She then turned around again to rummage through the things she had on the table. She picked up a tablet and handed it to Ayane. “Here’s a reward for talking to Kizana today.” Ayane took the device and turned it on. It was more camera footage, this time to Yamada’s house. It looked like the same view that had been used to take the picture that Ayane had received from Gogo on Christmas. “I’ll let you watch her for an hour.” Gogo waved. “I’ll see you later.” Ayane held the tablet to her chest, nodded, and then left the room.

A Health Committee member passed Ayane by in the hallway. Ayane waved to the girl and the girl waved back. When the girl was gone, Ayane immediately went inside the closest room she could reach – a supply closet – and leaned back against the door. She found herself slowly sinking down to a sitting position as she was completely mesmerized by Yamada. Watching the girl walk around the school was one thing, but seeing her thrive in her own room was something intimate, something that Ayane always craved for, _longed_ for. She could hear her breaths become shaky from only watching Yamada recline and mess with her cellphone. If watching Yamada relax could cause Ayane’s heart to pound, then she could only imagine how little it would take to just make Ayane go completely crazy. The only thing that was holding her back was these damn rivals.

Kizana was a nuisance before, but the girl had managed to turn herself into a complete pest now. The girl was more than a simple pest actually. She was a bloodsucking insect that desperately needed to be swatted. Kizana wouldn’t be around sooner than later though. Then after that Ayane only had two more to go before Yamada was all hers again.

 _Senpai_.

Senpai…

Ayane’s mind traced back to Ayano. Did Ayano feel the same way about Yamada Taro, her senpai? Ayane had read bits and pieces of Yande’s confession to the police and what had caught her eye was his mention over how Ayano didn’t hold any true affection toward Yamada Taro, but only had grown an obsession with him because he was the “good version” of Yande. Ayane had always taken it as just Yande’s retelling of the tale though. She never found a confession from Ayano. She wasn’t sure if the girl even had one, but it would be interesting to read about. Ayane always wanted to know Ayano’s side of the story. Ayano always felt like she would be the more trustworthy twin than Yande.

Once the feeds cut off, Ayane felt a sinking emptiness settle in her chest. She stared at the blank tablet screen for a moment. She wanted more. No, she _needed_ more. Everything was set in stone now.

Kizana was going down.

❋

Ayane wasn’t one to go to parties. She wasn’t one for large crowds of people in general. It looked like the entire school was there. They lived in Buraza Town where nothing much happened, so of course everyone was going to be out on the beach for New Year’s. They were all “snooty rich kids” with nothing better to do – Ayane included. She only accepted the invite that Kizana had given her all for Yamada. Maybe if she told Gogo that she had spent more time with Kizana, then she could receive more footage of Yamada again.

Ayane let the thought echo through her mind once everyone cheered and started releasing fireworks out over the water as the clock hit midnight. The entire flashy display of bursting and swirling lights and colors was boring to Ayane. Her costume for the night was a hat, a jean jacket, and a perspiring can of whatever cheap alcohol had been purchased for the evening. The drink wasn’t Ayane’s though, as she abstained from most things due to her condition (damn Gogo for finding that out – it was something that really only Ayane’s family knew about). The drink was for Kizana. Speaking of Kizana… Ayane turned to her. The girl was whooping and hollering with everyone else. She hiccupped when she turned to Ayane. She was all red in the face and her hair had come undone on one end.

“Do you think…?” Kizana touched at her hair, frowned, and redid it. “Do you think you can take me home?” Ayane handed off the drink she was holding to the nearest person before she walked off with Kizana.

Fireworks were still lighting up the sky as they walked down the sidewalk that led to Kizana’s neighborhood. Streetlamps still lit up the sides of the walkway and the night was still chilly. Ayane had a jacket, but Kizana’s arms were wrapped around her body. She had decided to wear a formfitting dress for the evening. A good friend would offer their jacket to their shivering friend. Too bad Ayane wasn’t a good friend.

Kizana was giggling and grabbing on to her arm again. “Yan-chan, Yan-chan~,” she was too close for comfort, “guess what, guess what.”

“What?”

“Wouldn’t it be perfect if Yamada-senpai was here? Ah, I love the both of you so, so, so much.” It took everything for Ayane not to throw the girl off of her. “Mmm, I wanna just take the both of you out after this play. That’d be so—ah—that’d be so perfect! I’ve been dreaming about how you two could just _take me_ at the same time. It’s what I’ve always wanted, you know that? The two of you at the same time? Perfection!” She hiccupped again before she yelped and jumped away from Ayane suddenly. “Ow, Yan-chan, you’re holding my arm too tight!”

“Sorry.” Ayane didn’t mean for her thoughts to take over and for her nails to clamp down into the delicate skin of Kizana’s bare, cool arm. Ayane wondered what it would be like to slice that skin open. It was so smooth and soft. It would probably be like sliding a knife through butter.

Kizana was pouting and rubbing her arm as she stopped in front of a beige-colored house. None of the lights were on, but there was a car in the driveway. Kizana’s face seemed to go from pink with pleasure and intoxication to deathly pale as she walked up the steps to leading to the front door. Ayane held back and watched. “Goodnight, Kizana,” she called out. Kizana didn’t say anything or even turn around.

Kizana fumbled with her purse to pull out her key, but the door opened up anyway. Kizawa Tatsuya was a man with a not-so-cheap looking bottle of alcohol in hand – also a man indebted to Ronshaku Loans, some type of _yamikinyu_ , or dark finance, family (all information provided by Info Gogo before the New Year’s party). He took a gulp from his drink, keeping an eye on Kizana all the while, before he muttered something that Ayane couldn’t hear. He took Kizana by her hair and pulled her inside of the house. He only threw a glance Ayane’s way before he slammed the door shut.

❋

The first day of the third trimester was proving to be uneventful. Classes went by as usual and the day quickly winded down to lunch. Ayane usually sat with the Health Committee club members. Today they chattered on about the New Year’s party and other things they did during winter break and how annoying it was to cut into their break to do committee activities. Ayane put her own input here and there whenever necessary, but mainly focused on her food. She always made her own lunches, always packed the same pure _Hinomaru_ bento – white rice with a pickled plum in the center that resembled the flag, and always sat with the same people. Day after day after day, same thing.

But now, Ayane could see something different approaching her, in the form of rose hairclips and black garter suspenders hooked to black stockings and a uniform jacket slung over the shoulder. “Yan-chan, wanna eat in the clubroom with me?” Ayane nodded and got up to the sounds of the Health Committee members oohing and aahing. “I see you still eat the same thing for lunch still.”

“Yeah.”

“It’s because you’re vegan right?”

“Yeah.”

“Does being vegan make you lose weight?”

“Um, I’m not sure.”

“I just wanted to know because I’m not exactly Kokona-dono’s weight yet. I need to lose like one or two more kilograms still in order to get closer to my Mistress.” Kizana pinched at her stomach. “It shouldn’t be too hard though. I have a couple of weeks.” She stood by the clubroom door, hand on hip. Ayane looked between the girl and the door.

“Something wrong?”

“Yeah.” Kizana pointed to the door. “Open the door for me. Be a gentlewoman.”

“Right.” Ayane slid the door open. Kizana practically skipped into the room. Ayane made sure the door was shut behind them. The room had papers strewn across the floor and clothes were here and there. Kizana walked up to an outfit that was hung up in the front of the room.

“I just wanted to get your thoughts on this. I had it handmade by the Art Club and the Sewing Club just like my Mistress did.” She touched the skirt of the costume. “It’s as close as a replica I can get. I wanted the original costume, but Kokona-dono’s father destroyed it before he moved away from Buraza Town. So, I had to go off, like, two pictures, but I think it looks okay. I don’t think that I’ll look that good in it though.” She bit her lip as she ran her hand over the waist of the outfit. “What if it doesn’t look like the original? The play would be ruined then if I can’t get it right.”

Ayane walked closer to the costume. She wasn’t sure what the original looked like, but the outfit that she saw now was decent at the most. It looked like an old-timey outfit, not quite traditional, but something else that Ayane couldn’t bother to remember the name for. A red skirt with an ivory top, and the length of the skirt and the neckline looked dangerous, but it wasn’t like Kizana was a stranger to showing off.

Ayane concluded her thoughts with a shrug. “Looks fine.” Kizana was still biting her lip. Was this a crack in her newfound la-di-da façade?

“I, uh… I wanted to thank you for taking me home on New Year’s. But, um, it’s not like I needed you to walk me home or anything, I would’ve been fine, but it’s only good for someone to walk people home and stuff.” She returned her hand to hip. “I’ll be needing an escort and a bodyguard and the whole shebang when I officially become an actress, so it’s always good to have practice.”

“Right. I can walk you home today too if you want?”

“Really?” Her hand fell from her hip. She quickly cleared her throat and straightened herself out though. “Good. I’ll see you by your locker at the end of the day then.”

❋

At the end of the day, Ayane peeked inside of the Anime Club’s room before walking to her locker. Gogo was in there, typing away. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” She asked without facing Ayane. The girl had cameras everywhere it seemed like. She most likely saw Ayane coming.

“What do I need to do to get more footage of Senpai?”

“Oh. You can just do things that I feel like need to be rewarded.”

“I’m walking Kizana home tonight. What if I went to her house?”

“I don’t know.” Gogo turned her wheelchair around. She was wearing a pretty pink outfit with poofy sleeves and everything. Ayane recalled hearing a group of girls cooing over how cute Gogo looked today before going up to the roof for lunch. Behind all that pink and lace, there had to be a gimmick. Like Ayane had thought during Christmas after that fateful phone call, the girl let pink hang off of her thin bones. Behind all that pink and lace, there had to be something more than just some cute little girl with a cute little voice. “We’ll see.” Ayane turned on her heels and left at that.

Kizana was standing by Ayane’s locker, arms crossed and foot tapping. “Ugh, you made me wait forever! I had enough time to put, like, five posters in Yamada-senpai’s locker and read over my script while I was waiting.” Kizana was still messing with Yamada? That would be over soon. “Don’t just stand there, c’mon,” Kizana was grabbing Ayane’s arm now. Ayane wanted to flinch and pull back like the girl held some type of infectious disease contained within her touch, but she resisted the urge. Just a little while longer and soon it would all come to an end.

❋

Kizana’s house was as messy as the clubroom. The house wasn’t particularly _dirty_ , but simply cluttered. There were still packed boxes around and clothes here and there. The dining room was better though. Nice, dark furniture and nice, light dishes.

A bowl of rice with vegetable curry sat in front of Ayane, cooked by the great Kizana herself. Ayane had thought that the girl was above cooking, but it looked like that wasn’t the case. The girl had been quiet while she was cooking though and then went back to chattering once she returned to the table with the steaming food.

“Sorry that we can’t go out or anything,” Kizana muttered, “I got too much homework and I, um… I have to do it.”

“It’s okay.” Ayane took a bite of her food. It was odd to be such a tumultuous environment when the Aishi household was always (creepily) clean. Someone was always cleaning. When Ayane’s parents were away, she usually found herself cleaning to keep the boredom away. When her parents were home, her father was either cleaning to distract himself or her mother was cleaning to distract everyone else. “It doesn’t look like you’re doing homework.” A wrinkled script was covering the homework that was lain out on the table.

“If I don’t memorize this script verbatim, then I’m a failure.” There was a photograph of Kokona Haruka in Kizana’s binder. Kizana pulled out the picture. “Ugh, I feel like I already am failing though. I’m not the same height as her. I’m only one hundred forty-nine centimeters and she’s one hundred fifty-two. And she’s one cup size bigger than me too. I have her nose now, so I guess I’m one step closer, but I still don’t feel good enough.” Was it really worth it to make such a fuss over three measly centimeters and a cup size? Speaking to Kizana was similar to the state of her house and the clubroom: a whirlwind. One moment the girl was dripping confidence from her lips onto the floor and full of self-praises and laughs and then the next moment she was berating herself, calling herself a failure, saying that she wasn’t good enough.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes!” Kizana slammed her hands on the table. “It does matter! If I don’t look like her, then everything— _everything_ —has been pointless! What—”

“Stop yelling.” Kizana immediately shut her mouth and blanched, just like she had when Ayane had dropped her off after the New Year’s party. “What did I say about yelling?” Kizana’s father was taking off his shoes and slammed the door behind him. The man had a thing for slamming doors, it looked like.

“Sorry,” Kizana muttered.

“You should be.” The man’s voice was gruff, nothing like Kizana’s smooth one. At least the girl’s voice wasn’t annoying, or else Ayane would have scratched her ears off and snagged the girl’s tongue out days ago. Kizawa Tatsuya unbuttoned the top buttons of his oil-stained coveralls as he walked to the kitchen. “You cooked?”

“Yes.” Kizana’s voice had grown so small.

“Nothing for me though?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I told you to clean too. What happened to that?”

“I’m sorry,” Kizana repeated.

“Stop. All these apologies are worthless.” He walked over to the table and took Kizana by the hair. “You don’t think I deserve to eat after a long, hard day at work?” He pulled her head back so she could face him. “Answer me.”

“You do.”

“Good. I expect something decent after I shower.” He let go of her and walked away then. Ayane could hear his heavy footsteps echo throughout the house and another door shut.

Ayane and Kizana sat in silence. Kizana didn’t touch her work. Ayane didn’t touch her food. Tension was heavy in the air.

“I…” Kizana was biting her lip again. “I-I’ll get him to love me again. When I become an official actress, he’ll love me again.” Her eyes flickered off to the corner of the room. Ayane followed her gaze. There was a picture frame on the wall, but it was flipped around. Ayane had decided not to comment on it. It was probably a picture of Kizana’s mother. If the mere sound of the woman’s name could set Kizana off, then Ayane could only imagine what a photograph could do. “Once I’m an actress, we’ll move out of this town and he won’t have to work anymore or even be a mechanic ever again and I’ll be able to take care of him and make him happy and make him love me again.” Ayane mulled over how to respond. Hundreds of responds that she had compartmentalized over the years – the proper things to say, empathic says to say, the right things to say, the _human things to say_ – ran through her mind in an instant.

Ayane settled on one word though: “Why?” Kizana’s eyes snapped back to her.

“Huh?”

“Why are you putting yourself through this?” And for once, Kizana didn’t have an answer.

❋

Gogo told Ayane that her reward was coming the next day. Yamada was the only one could fill the pit of Ayane’s stomach with anticipation. A girl promptly arrived to the Aishi household. Ayane had categorized the girl as another first-year student – one that was a little quieter than the rest, which was how she gained Ayane’s attention. The girl was taller than Ayane and wore her smirks freely like Kizana did.

“Special delivery from Gogo-chan,” the girl said, handing over a package. It was wrapped in the same pink wrapping paper that Gogo had used for her Christmas present. Ayane quickly snatched the box and closed the door. “What, no tip?” She heard the girl say. She chose to walk to her room.

The tablet was in the box, along with a CD and a note. The note read that the disk contained footage from the nineties and that Ayane would be able to watch Yamada for the next three hours.

Ayane watched what was on the CD first. The timestamp dated that it was the eighth of January, 1998. Tomorrow, it would have been exactly sixteen years ago from that date. Sixteen years ago, Ayane was still in California with her American relatives. As the video started, it looked like the twins were both in Ayano’s room.

.

.

.

Yande was sitting on Ayano’s bed while the girl was changing. Her back was facing her twin as she removed her uniform and unclasped her bra. She tossed her skirt in the corner of the room before she walked over to him, hand outstretched. Yande paused before handing her a T-shirt with a painting of a gutted octopus on its front. “You stole that shirt from dad weeks ago. What do you like so much about it?” Yande asked.

“I like the blood,” Ayano muttered before she pulled the shirt on. It came down to her knees. They looked at each other for a moment before Ayano reached out and touched Yande’s arm. She then settled herself on his lap. The moment his hands slid up her thighs and pulled up the hem of her too-large shirt, Ayano looked up at him. They both only silently bore into each other’s eyes for a split second before Ayano stood up and slammed the door behind her.

Ayano walked to Yande’s room and curled up into a fetal position on his bed. She lied down silently for minutes upon minutes before she stood up again. She looked up and the hallway before she walked down to the bathroom. She locked the door behind her, then leaned against the door for a moment, hand still on the knob. When she finally moved again, she went to the bathtub. Ayano stood stock still as she waited for the water to fill up the tub completely. She then sank down to her knees in front of the tub, hands on the edge, and dunked her head underneath the water.

Minutes upon minutes passed before she pulled up again, gasping for breath. She clawed her fingers through her wet hair as her lungs regained their sense of functionality again. She hit her hand against the side of the tub, again and again until surely her creamy skin would darken with a bruise.

Minutes upon minutes passed before Ayano calmed down again, dried herself off, and left the bathroom.

.

.

.

Ayane put Gogo on speakerphone as she watched Yamada for the evening. “I’m pretty sure there’s even more of that somewhere,” Gogo murmured. “She was missing a part of her little finger in February, I believe. I’ll see if there’s any footage of that. I would really like to know the story behind what happened there.” Ayane did too, but she didn’t comment. She was too focused on Yamada. “Hey, can I ask you a question?”

“What?” Ayane’s voice came out in but above a whisper, but Gogo seemed to hear her just fine.

“What are you planning to do with Kizana?” Ayane’s eyes didn’t break away from the screen. The question still processed through her mind though. It was a good one. “Sorry, I don’t mean to put any pressure on you or anything. I’m just curious.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure.”

“Would you mind… if I took pictures?”

“Why?”

“Um, I want to sell them. I know there’s a market online that would enjoy pictures like that. I’ve been doing my research and I could just really use the money.”

“Why?”

“Uh, my mother is withdrawing my allowance. Money is just tight right now and I need some for food. That’s all.” Ayane could beg to differ. An endless supply of fancy clothes _and_ being the headmaster’s grandchild? Money troubles seemed obsolete.

“What if the police or someone from school sees?”

“I promise you they won’t. I wouldn’t have suggested this if I knew that there’s a chance we would get caught. I don’t even want pictures of your face or anything, just the body.” Yamada’s cellphone was going off. “Can you just think about it?”

“I’ll think about it.” Ayane was too immersed in Yamada now. She hadn’t seen her take a phone call yet. Yamada put down the homework she was doing and reached out for her phone.

“Hello, wh—oh, Kizana, how are you?” Yamada was twirling her hair around her finger as she listened. Ayane sighed. That voice was literal music to the ears. “Uh, the play? Oh, yeah I saw the posters you’ve been giving me… I’m still thinking about going, yeah… Uh, I have to see if I’m available that night. What’d you say, the twenty-fourth? Yeah, I’ll have to see if I’m busy. I’m a teaching assistant, you know… Yeah, I’m just thinking about maybe becoming a teacher after school, but we’ll see… Go out? What do you mean by that?” Ayane frowned. “Oh, uh, Aishi is going to be there too? I don’t—oh, okay, okay. I’ll check my schedule and if I’m busy on the day of the play, then I’ll try to show up for a rehearsal for you, how does that sound? Great! Have a good night, Kizana.” Yamada let out a loud sigh as she ended the call.

Did Kizana say something about Ayane? If so, then what? Yamada didn’t have the best reaction to it, but it wasn’t like she was going to react positively to anything about Ayane. Yamada had shunned Ayane since that fateful day in elementary school. Of course she was going to react in such a way if somebody brought Ayane up. Kizana probably said that Ayane was showing up to the play. Ayane could already see Yamada saying that she was going to be “busy” so that she would have an excuse not to show up. _Stupid, stupid, stup_ —

The feed cut off.

Ayane reached out for her own phone and quickly called Kizana. The girl picked up instantly. “Yan-chan? It’s a little late to be calling people, don’t you think?” Of course she would say something like that.

“I was just wondering if I could go to another rehearsal. Just to see how things are going.”

“You… You want to go to another rehearsal?”

“Yes, if that’ll be okay.”

“Uh…” The line went silent for too long. “This Saturday, yeah. Meet me in the auditorium.” Kizana hung up.

❋

It was just Kizana and Ayane at this rehearsal. Kizana had texted Ayane telling her that she was backstage. The school was mostly emptied again. It was late into the evening, nearing Sunday actually, and the clubs, committees, and Saturday school kids had retired for the night. There had to be at least one teacher in the building to allow Kizana and Ayane to stick around so late. Ayane could ask Gogo where this lone faculty member was located need be though.

Kizana was wearing her costume. It wasn’t quite as snug as the outfit that she had worn on New Year’s, but it was still as exposing as Ayane thought it would be, showing off plenty of bust and legs. The girl was sitting at a vanity, legs and arms crossed. Ayane’s eyes immediately focused on the purpling bruises that decorated the girl’s collarbone. “What happened?”

“Doesn’t matter. I can just cover it with makeup.” Kizana huffed. “I don’t think it’s good enough. Akademi High School didn’t have an auditorium. They were gonna perform the play in the clubroom, but Akademi Academy just _had_ to build a fucking auditorium. Ugh, nothing is ever good enough.” She leaned her cheek against her hand. “Why’d you ask to come to rehearsal, huh? Are you going to kill me?”

“No? Why would you say that?”

“Because you can’t kill me here, I need to be on the roof. Kokona-dono died on the rooftop, so I _have to die on the rooftop too_.”

“Kizana,” Ayane reached a hand out and touched the girl’s shoulder, “I’m not going to kill you.”

“You have to!” Kizana shot up from her seat. “All of this practicing, this surgery, this entire fucking production is all for my Mistress, and if I don’t get killed at the end of it just like her, then it’s pointless!” Tears were welling up in her eyes. “Before I came here, you know what my father said to me? He was mad because I still haven’t cook for him yet and I still haven’t cleaned the house yet. He said that _she_ would have cleaned up and cooked by now.” She? “H-He was so disappointed in me. He looked at me like I’m a failure. I know I am. I’m trying my best to be _her_ , but it’s so hard.” Her?

“Kizana. Stop.”

“I can’t!”

Time for some false comfort: “Tell me what your favorite part of the play is, then.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Well, there goes Ayane’s thinly veiled attempt at a distraction. “As long as I get this last part right. That’s the part when Kokona-dono died.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know everything there is to know! Kokona-dono and Aishi Yande were on the school rooftop, Wednesday, the twenty-first of January, 1998 and they were practicing. Yande was in the disguise of the Husband in the play and was distracting my Mistress when suddenly Aishi Ayano comes up from behind and stabs her in the back and through the chest. Then they threw her off the roof into the incinerator.”

“How do you know this?”

“I snuck into Kokona-dono’s father’s house and found it. It was a section of Yande and Ayano’s confessions about what happened to her. I wanted everything to be exactly right. B-But…” She wiped at her eyes. “At the end of the day, it’s just going to be a failure. I put years into this, but it’s not going to be perfect.”

“…You’re right. It’s not going to be perfect.” Time to fuel the fire. “You’re never going to rise up as the best actress you can be if you keep making mistakes.”

“You’re right, you’re right, you’re right.” Kizana pulled at her hair, the same way that Ayane had seen the girl’s father do it. “I’m never going to amount to anything if I don’t practice to perfection."

“I am right. You’ll never be perfect if you continue down this route.”

“I know, I know, I know!” Kizana tugged at her hair until the clips came off. “I can’t be _her_ and I’ll never be _her_ no matter how hard I try! My father is never going to love me again at this rate.”

“Who’s her? Who are you talking about?” Kizana was biting at her lips again. “Tell me, Kizana, what’s her name?”

“No, no, no—”

“Tell me what her name is. Say it.”

“N-No, no, no, n—!”

“Are you talking about…” Ayane leaned toward the girl’s ear. “Kizawa Yasuko?” Kizana screamed.

“It should’ve been me!” She kicked the chair behind her, launching it into the vanity. “I should’ve gotten killed that night, not _her_! It should’ve been me! I’m the one who deserves to die!” She reached out toward her backpack, hands trembling, and took out a series of papers. “You see this?” She held the papers out in Ayane’s face, but they were wavering too much for Ayane to read them. “It’s not a suicide note, no, it’s a _murder_ note. Look, look at this!” Kizana took one of the pages and tossed it Ayane’s way. _It should have been me_ was written over and over again on the sheet. The seventeen characters that made up the sentence became larger and shakier each time they repeated. “I deserve to get a knife in the chest and thrown off the roof! It’s poetic justice! It’s a full circle! It’s my divine right! You have to do it, Ayane!”

“Do what?”

“Do what the Husband in _Himitsu no Kingyo_ did to the Wife to me—cut me up and put my parts into boxes and eat me and force me to eat myself too while I’m still alive. Sagawa Issei me, Jeffery Dahmer me, Albert Fish me! Ayane, I’m begging you! Look,” Kizana gestured wildly toward her body. Not much was left to the imagination in such a getup. “I know my body isn’t like my Mistress’ yet. I know it’s still imperfect and ugly and it deserves another beating, but I’m ready.”

“How could you be ready if you still aren’t Kokona Haruka yet?” Ayane put on her best mask of disgust. “How could you be ready if you still aren’t _Kizawa Yasuko_ yet?” Kizana pulled at her hair again.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry, sorry, sorry!” She raced outside. Ayane followed after. She felt her phone vibrate. She quickly answered it. She was expecting a call from only one person.

“If you’re planning to do it here,” Gogo said, “now’s the time. There’s only one teacher on campus and she’s on the other side of the building from where you two are, so thankfully she couldn’t hear all of that yelling.”

“I’m taking this one home. I didn’t bring my gloves with me.”

“All right. I’ll be on standby if you need me.”

“Question: do you have any rope and gasoline?”

“Look up.” Ayane looked up and saw one of the windows open. Something fell from it. Ayane was quick to catch it, not skipping a beat. Rope. “You’re welcome. The gasoline will be at your house in a moment.” Gogo hung up.

Kizana was by the incinerator, tossing her papers around. Ayane gathered them up, folded them, and shoved them into her pants’ back pocket. They could come in handy later. She wrapped her hand around Kizana’s arm. “Let’s go.”

“Y-Y-You’re going to kill me finally?” Ayane remained silent. She led the girl toward the entrance gates. “W-Wha—hey, where are you taking me?” Kizana wasn’t pulling away though. “You’re not giving me the death I deserve! Take me to the roof!”

❋

Instead of a roof, Kizana Sunobu was going to have to settle on a soundproof basement. Kizana had accepted being led away and had allowed herself to get tied up too. She still protested the entire time though, but her voice quieted once Ayane brought a knife into play. The blade gleamed in the soft light of the basement.

“This is it.” Kizana struggled against her restraints for a moment – Ayane had done a decent job was tying the girl to the supporting pillar in the room, if she could say so herself – before she leaned back against the pillar, as if she was presenting herself, bestowing herself like she was a grand prize to be won. She pressed her shoulders back against the pillar and puffed her chest out. “Do it,” Kizana whispered. Ayane couldn’t object to that.

She pulled up one of Kizana’s long sleeves and experimentally ran her blade down the arm. It wasn’t exactly as how she pictured it. No. It was _even better_. Kizana winced and whimpered, but still wasn’t pulling away. She really did want this.

Ayane undid the tie holding the front of the top together, giving Kizana’s breasts complete freedom. “See, I did something good. I didn’t wear anything underneath the costume because I knew this was going to happen and I didn’t want to get in your way.”

Ayane could only nod. She continued to open the outfit until the girl’s stomach was exposed. “You did do something good for once.” For some reason, Kizana beamed at that – a genuine grin with no evil intentions behind it. Such a blissed out smile would seem more terrifying than a trained smirk to anyone. Not Ayane though. Ayane didn’t even blink before she plunged her knife in.

The feeling of gouging into the human flesh was simply indescribable. The icing on the cake was only to have to move the handle slightly and gaining a copious amount of blood as a result. The cherry on top was Kizana’s screech of pure, unadulterated pain that soon turned into excited string of squeals and more whimpers with even some moans mixed in. Tears were freely falling down the girl’s face now, but she was still smiling. “Keep going,” she gasped between her teeth. “I deserve this.” Once again, Ayane couldn’t object to that.

She moved the blade so that could cut clear across the stomach. What both girls wanted was beginning to spill out: viscera. “C-Can I… Let me…” As Ayane tore a part of the girl out, Kizana banged her head back against the pillar, obviously pained, but still breathing wildly.

“You want this?” Ayane held up the piece of entrails that she had pulled out. Kizana’s eyes were beginning to lose focus. Her mouth seemed to be watering too. “Do you really think you deserve to taste yourself? Your body is too disgusting. You’ll just poison yourself with something like this.” Kizana let out another whimper. “Hm, what was that?”

“P-Please…”

“I don’t think so.”

“Y-Yan… Please…”

“You’re disgusting.”

“I… am…”

“You’re worse than swine.”

“I…”

“You don’t deserve this.” Ayane waved the piece in front of the girl’s face. Kizana’s shoulders were slumping over and her head was beginning to lean forward. Ayane took the girl’s chin in one hand, smearing redness all over, and held the girl’s head up. It looked like Kizana was struggling just to keep her eyes open. “Do you still want this?” Kizana’s mouth hung open. “Eat up.” She placed the piece on Kizana’s tongue and forced her jaw shut. The girl made the motions of chewing, but Ayane knew that it was fruitless.

She got back up to her feet and looked down at her creation. It was beautiful, but it was missing something. She picked up the container of gasoline in the corner of the room. Thankfully, Gogo had arrived just in time, and with a box of matches too. She poured a good amount over Kizana’s head until the girl was soaked thoroughly. Kizana wasn’t picking her head up, but her chest was still rising, still twitching, and her stomach was still pouring and pouring out and more and more.

The sound of the match striking against the box was enough for Kizana to try to move her head up again. With only a snap of the finger, Ayane tossed the match.

Now _this_ was a display that would beat a bunch of stupid fireworks any day.

Thank goodness there weren’t any fire alarms in the basement, or else Ayane would surely be in trouble. Kizana still had one delicious scream left in her too – thank goodness no noise could escape out of the basement either. _Bloodcurdling, spine-tingling, hair-raising_. Was Ayane actually getting goosebumps from this? Kizana now, head suddenly upright and engulfed in a halo of flames, was up there on the list of the most wondrous things Ayane had ever seen – second to Yamada.

Watching that seemingly perfect skin begin to redden and split and tear and blister was too much. It was making Ayane actually shiver. It was only in her divine right to do so though, right? The room was blackening and her eyes were beginning to tear up before she could answer her own question though. With a cough, she went back to the corner of the room to pick up the fire extinguisher she had placed there earlier. All good things had to come to an end eventually. Ayane nearly sighed as she pulled the pin from the extinguisher. It was shame to end such a display, but if Ayane wanted to see more, than she needed to stay alive for a just a little bit longer.

❋

Ayane discarded the cloth that she had used to clean the white foam from Kizana’s corpse to the side. Gogo was still at the top of the staircase leading to the basement. The girl had arrived with the pile of cardboard boxes that Ayane had requested and a little pink camera. Ayane walked over to the staircase. She only looked up at the other girl, face blank.

“Could you help me down really quick?” She pushed her wheelchair back some before standing up.

“You can stand.”

“I can walk too.” Gogo chuckled. “I just need you to make sure that I don’t fall down the stairs.” Ayane stood by the girl’s side as they slowly walked down the stairs together. This was to be a symbiotic relationship. Ayane knew her own benefits, but she was still unsure about Gogo, even despite the girl insisting on wanting to put “everything out on the table.”

Gogo sat down in a spot on the floor that wasn’t stained with blood and started taking her precious pictures. Ayane only watched in silence. She was itching to put the boxes into use and move on. She was also anticipating Gogo’s promise of being able to watch Yamada for the rest of the week. Ayane had never felt impatient before, and it felt nice.

“I’m done.” Ayane nodded and moved in. She took the knife that had been gifted to her and began to slice into the charred skin. As parts began to fall off, she placed them in the cardboard boxes around her, organizing them by the regions of the body. Was it miraculous that the girl’s face was nearly unaffected? Ayane opened the girl’s mouth. Her jaw was quick to drop open. Ah, it was still there – the bit of intestine that Kizana had insisted on being fed. Ayane closed the girl’s mouth again. “You know,” Gogo tucked her skirt underneath her legs, “this is what she would have wanted. When I think of people who were burned at the stake—like she basically was—I think of Joan of Arc and witches. I think of tragic heroines. That’s why I say that’s what she would have wanted. I think that she was fixated on women who died in tragic ways and she wanted to become one herself.”

Ayane paused before she began to work on cutting at Kizana’s neck. “Why are you telling me this?”

“So that you won’t feel guilty or anything.”

“Look at this.” Ayane held up Kizana’s head toward Gogo. The girl flinched back. “Does it seem like I feel guilty to you?”


	3. swim

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _swim (swim) [n.] — to not drown; something sinister; a pendulum swinging low; a degenerate moving; enemy turf; psyche._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _in this chapter:_  
>  \- non-consensual drug usage.  
> \- animal death.

Yamada always looked different in the dreams. A permanent, pinkish blush was always spread across her cheeks and she was always looking, always smiling. Not like Ayane didn’t mind, but there seemed to be an unneeded twist in her chest whenever she realized that Yamada in real life would never look at her in such a way. But now the twist could be lessened some. _Soon_ repeated itself in a mantra over and over again in Ayane’s mind as she looked at the Dream Yamada. _Soon_ they would be together. _Soon_ she would get that look all the time. _Soon_ Yamada would be all hers and no one could ever come between them ever again.

The dream was a usual setting: a bathhouse. Together they soaked, nude, in milky greenish waters – green tea infusion. The sweetened scent was only a natural touch, as Ayane still vividly remembered the green tea vending machine outside of the elementary school that she and Yamada (and… _her_ ) would meet at every morning before class.

Ayane sighed and allowed all negative thoughts to leave her mind. There was no need to be stressed in such a relaxing and detoxing environment. She wrapped her arm over Dream Yamada’s shoulders. Smooth, creamy, unblemished skin – the girl was the literal definition of perfection, nothing less.

Someone else was stepping into the bath.

Ayane’s grip on Dream Yamada’s shoulder tightened. The girl cooed and pressed her body closer to hers, splashing the water around them slightly. Her dreams – especially the ones of the bathhouse variety – only consisted of herself and Yamada. She looked up to see a towel being discarded to the side. Once the steam cleared some, she could see who it was: Ayano. She had never dreamt of her long gone sister before. She didn’t want to either. Yet, logically speaking, it did make sense. The image of Ayano purposely holding her head underneath the water of the bathtub was haunting in its own way. It was Ayane’s last thoughts of the night as she washed herself in the same tub before she went to bed.

Ayano was looking down into the water silently. Two girls who only spoke when spoken to – was that what “two wrongs don’t make a right” meant? Possibly. Ayane only glanced at her sister for a few moments, seeing if she was going to do anything. Nothing. She turned back to Dream Yamada, who was still flushed and beginning to slide their legs together. “Yan-Yan,” she whined. Out of the corner of her eye, Ayane could see Ayano pick her head up for a brief second before she looked back down. Ayane drew her full attention to Dream Yamada’s lips fervently pressing against her skin.

❋

Yamada (the real one) was answering a phone call. Ayane found her hands tightening on the sides of the tablet. _Someone is certainly popular_ , her mind spat out. “…the pictures are doing well, and—” Ayane hushed Gogo. The girl had called her to tell her that she would be receiving Yamada footage and had been on the line ever since then. Ayane had treated her voice as background noise, but now was time to devote not only her eyes, but her ears to Yamada and this mysterious caller.

“Hello?” Yamada suddenly sat up on her bed. “Oh, Osoro, what’s up?” Ayane bit her lip. Yamada was on a first name basis with the delinquent leader? When did this happen? Yamada nodded a couple of times before she lied back down again. “Sorry, you were talking too fast there. What did you sa—oh…” Yamada looked down at her phone. “She hung up,” she sighed. Ayane felt a frown bite at her lips. What a strange little interaction indeed.

She was brought back to reality by the sound of Gogo clearing her throat. “May I continue now?”

“Yes,” Ayane answered.

“Thank you. You’ll find two things on the tablet: video footage dating the ninth of January, 1998 showing the murder of Najimi Osana and a picture dating the twenty-eighth of January, same year, depicting the body of Kaiyo Puru. The files are set to delete themselves by the end of the day, so I recommend watching them sooner rather than later.”

“Alright.” Ayane was ready for Gogo to hang up. The girl usually did at this point, but instead she received a quick quiver of a breath.

“You are… You are really into Yamada-senpai.”

“Yes…?” What was that supposed to mean? Ayane thought that they had already established that. _Of course_ she was into Yamada.

“S-Sorry. I’ll go now. Have a nice Sunday.” Gogo hung up then. Ayane sighed. Seemed like she and Yamada had both received an awkward phone call for the day.

Once the feed of Yamada cut off, Ayane searched through the other files that Gogo talked about. She looked at the photo first. She thought back. Kaiyo Puru was the captain of the swim team and leader of the Swim Club back in the nineties. Ayano was the one who murdered her, from what Ayane remembered of Yande’s confession. He hadn’t mentioned a picture being taken of Kaiyo’s body, though, but he had mentioned videotaping Najimi Osana’s murder. It was almost miraculous that Gogo was uncovering so much information that the police were couldn’t discover. Gogo’s mother, the Lost Info-chan, had gotten away and the messages and footage kept around the house was unable to be recovered.

Ayane zoomed in on the picture. It was all almost intriguing. The school pool in the past looked no different than the one in the present. With only the few lights lining up the poolside, there was a soft, almost ethereal glow to the setting. Ayane guessed that Ayano’s hands must have been shaking when she took the picture, but a little blurriness didn’t fail to paint the vivid image of a corpse floating in the pool with a deep gash across the stomach that had stained the waters below.

Next was the video. Najimi Osana was the very first victim – killed for being too close to Yamada Taro. According to Yande’s confession, she had been kidnapped by the twins, dismembered in the basement, and then had her body parts disposed of in trash bags, feigning as just another thing of garbage. Ayane still had Kizana’s parts all lined up and pretty in boxes in the basement. She had bigger plans than to simply just _throw_ Kizana away.

The first thing Ayane saw was Yande look briefly at the camera before turning to Ayano. “Ready?” He asked her, voice low, handing her a circular saw. Ayane had seen the twins speak before – especially Yande, as she watched his confession over and over, and in a few home videos here and there that her mother dug up occasionally. The sound of his voice still made Ayane straighten up slightly. Only a select few people could entice a reaction out of her and one of them was obviously Aishi Yande.

Ayane’s attention was completely grabbed by the video. Ayano had gotten a good start on the Najimi before she was pulled back by Yande so he could take his turn. Ayano had dug her hands into the girl’s intestines and Yande kissed the decapitated head.

The twins were admittedly the dream team. Watching them murder felt like… like—

Ayane’s phone rang. Gogo again. “Hey,” Gogo said when she picked up, “sorry to suddenly call again, but I forgot to mention that it’s proving difficult to find the actual messages between the twins and the Info’s. You see, I managed to recover the video and picture from one of my mo—I mean, Info-chan’s computers, but it’s almost as if the actual exchanges between everyone are _gone_. But I know that that’s not true. I’m trying my best to find and recover those also.” All Ayane could do was nod in response. “Um, like, I found a screenshot of a conversation between Info-chan and Ayano alongside the photo of Kaiyo Puru, but it was only Ayano confirming that she had taken a photo and Info-chan asking for her to leave the pool so the other Info’s could clean up. I thought that you wouldn’t be interested in seeing it, so I didn’t send it.”

“I wonder why she would take a screenshot of the conversation.”

“I was wondering the same thing, actually! I’m not sure if she was saving it for herself or was showing it to someone else. I’ve been brainstorming all day since I don’t have anything else to do.” Gogo sighed. “Did you plant Kizana’s ‘murder note’ yet?”

“Yes, it’s in her house.”

“Good. Her father should be home soon to read it. Oh, and before I go, I just wanted to thank you.”

“For what?”

“For working with me, I guess. I can’t wait to see what you’re going to do with Shidesu Osoro.”

“Do you want to photograph this one too?”

“Only with your permission.”

“You have it.” Gogo seemed to let out a happy exhale.

“Thank you again.”

❋

Ayane’s phone buzzed, but it was a number she didn’t recognize. Gogo peeped over her arm. “Kizawa Tatsuya—Kizana’s father,” she murmured. Ayane nodded and accepted the call.

“You’re Aishi, right? Aishi Ayane—that one girl that walked Suzu home on New Year’s and was at the house that other time.”

“Yes, that’s me. How did you get my number?”

“Suzu had it written down in her room. All I ever heard her talk about was the Aishi twins and that stupid fucking play. But that’s not, uh, what I called about.” He cleared his throat. Ayane put the phone on speaker and set it beside Gogo so the girl could hear too. “Anyways,” out of the corner of her eye, Ayane could see Gogo suddenly flinch as Tatsuya spoke, “I wanted to call because you seemed closest to her. She never brought people home. Well, uh, not in the daytime, if you know what I mean.” He chuckled suddenly. Gogo turned back to a computer screen and began typing. “I found an, uh, _interesting_ note in her room this morning. She wrote dramatic shit like this before and I’d ignore it, but it seems different this time. I haven’t seen her since Saturday night. She said that she was going to go practice her play at the school, but never came home. Have any idea where she is?”

“Sorry, Kizawa-san, I haven’t seen or talked to Kizana since Friday.” Tatsuya snorted.

“Oh, you call her ‘Kizana,’ huh?” He clicked his tongue. “Anyways, I think it’s the real deal this time—I think Suzu really bit the bullet. I wanted to ask you if you could bring anything from the school over to my house today. I plan to move back with the rest of the family in Amakusa—can’t stand an empty house.”

“I will, Kizawa-san. I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Yeah, so am I.” He hung up. Gogo paused her typing for a moment.

“He seemed… indifferent.” Ayane nodded in agreement. The call did seem a little lukewarm.

“Perhaps he hasn’t let it settle in yet.”

“His daughter goes missing, he finds her suicide note and then he proceeds to make jokes about her sex life and make fun of her interests?” Gogo huffed and went back to typing. “What a joke of a man.” Ayane nearly raised an eyebrow. Such a cutesy voice spitting out words of bad humor was… something she liked, she had to admit. Gogo was a living juxtaposition; a living doll baby who was currently auctioning off images of a mutilated and burned body as if it was something casual. “Oh, and I will like to apologize.”

“For what?”

“I had Yui Rio—the girl who delivered that package to you on Thursday—go into your basement and receive the box containing one of Kizana’s arms. I’m sorry that I didn’t ask for your permission first.” Ayane shrugged. It wasn’t that big of a deal.

“Why?”

Gogo suddenly shut down the computers and pushed herself away from the desk. She wheeled herself toward the door. “You have to bring Kizana’s things to her house, right? Come with me, there should be boxes in the Cooking Clubroom that you can use.” The sudden topic change was odd, but Ayane didn’t question it. She only followed after.

❋

The Cooking Club members always seemed to have some type of personal vendetta against Ayane, so she tended to avoid the club. Not that she cared or was scared, but because their glares and passive-aggressiveness grew tiresome fast. When Ayane’s father had asked for her to join a club or committee for high school, she immediately mentally scratched off the Cooking Cub from the list. She was already annoyed when she simply walked into the clubroom, she wasn’t sure if she could handle them for an entire three years. It’s not like _she_ was the one who cut the nineties president of the Cooking Club into itty bitty pieces – that was Ayano.

Straightaway, Gogo was greeted by everyone in the room, while Ayane only received a few sour stares. It seemed pretty crowded inside. “Gogo-chan, what brings you here?” The Cooking Club president asked. “Ooh, did you come to eat with us?”

“Ah, no, but thank you! I came to see if you guys have any spare boxes that Aishi-senpai could borrow? I saw her looking for one and I immediately thought that there might be some in the Cooking Club because you guys get packages of food all the time, right?”

“Yeah, actually. We have a few spares. Come on back.” Gogo followed behind the club leader and Ayane followed behind her. “Sorry it’s so crowded today. The Drama Club said that we invited them to come eat in the room after school today, but we didn’t? It’s so weird, but I couldn’t turn them down because I love to cook and the Drama Club’s pretty fun when Kizana-san isn’t around.” She winked. “Don’t tell her I said that.”

Gogo winked back. “I won’t.”

The club leader began rummaging through some boxes stacked toward the side of the room. “This morning we also got an extra package from the store today, so we decided to cook it up for the Drama Club.” She pulled out a medium-sized box. “Here you go. Should be big enough, I hope.”

“It’s perfect, thank you.” Gogo handed the box to Ayane. The box had a slightly different label than the ones in the stack. It was the same kind that Gogo had given Ayane to store Kizana’s body parts in. “What was in this mysterious package?”

“Officially: mystery meat—tastes kinda like veal, though. I ordered pork, but I got an extra package of veal.” The club leader shrugged. “Oh, well. I couldn’t let it go to waste. You sure that you don’t want to eat with us, Gogo-chan? You usually do.”

“No, that’s okay. I’m actually not hungry for once.” Gogo giggled. “Bye-bye!” She tapped Ayane’s side. “We can go now if you want, Aishi-senpai.” Ayane nodded. She looked behind her at everyone sitting at the table, merrily chitchatting, eating – not _knowing_ what they were eating.

Ayane found herself grabbing Gogo’s shoulder when they left the classroom. The girl jumped slightly and turned to Ayane with wide eyes. Ayane could only squeeze her shoulder before she went off to the Drama Clubroom. _Something_ was coursing through her being. She decided to label it rightfully off as “pride” and not think about it again.

❋

“Thank you again.” Ayane nodded. She placed the last box in the front by the front door. “Suzu cooked you dinner that other time, right?” Kizawa Tatsuya clicked his tongue and stroked his beard. “Silly girl never cooked for me when I asked, but does for a stranger that she invites into my house without permission,” he muttered. He shook his head.

“That’s the last box,” Ayane announced. “Are you sure that Kizana is really… gone?”

“Yeah.” He reached in his back pocket and pulled out a cigarette and lighter. “At least, she better be gone. I’ll be collecting a pretty penny out of this fiasco and hopefully her and her mother combined will be able to pay off this damn debt.” He let out a puff of smoke right by Ayane’s head. “She’ll be declared dead _in absentia_ in a few years. I should be good.” He pulled out his phone. “Excuse me, I gotta take a call. You can go now. I’ll move all the boxes myself.” Ayane nodded and waved.

She lingered by the window after she closed the door. She could hear Tatsuya’s side of the conversation loud and clear: “Yup, she finally did it—she ended herself… yeah, baby, you can come to Amakusa with me. I can’t wait to show you off to the family… Right, right… I’m moving the boxes right now, don’t worry, I’ll be there in a second.” He laughed. “Love you, bye.”

❋

Yamada looked distraught at the vigil held for Kizana. She had even been the one to insist on placing a flower on Kizana’s desk. Ayane locked the shameless observation in her mind as she watched her beloved from the other side of the bleachers. Saiko Megami was giving a speech, as of naturally expected by the Student Council president. The speech was an echo of the one given when a student had committed suicide in Ayane’s first year of high school. She drowned out the sound of Saiko’s (seemingly phony) sympathy, while the rest of the student body seemed to be completely dialed in.

No. One group of students wasn’t.

The delinquents looked bored out of their minds and were entertaining themselves. The ceremony had been mandatory all over, not even they could escape it. Ayane’s eyes quickly snapped to Shidesu as the girl stood up and began to make her way toward the entrance of the gymnasium – where Yamada was. Ayane was on the edge of her seat. She couldn’t make out what Shidesu was saying, but judging from the way that Yamada was nodding and smiling, it was something that Ayane was sure she wasn’t going to like.

Ayane quickly made her way to the entrance, where Yamada and Shidesu disappeared soon after the ceremony was over. She heard Shidesu’s voice rumble, “See you tomorrow tonight,” then Yamada nodding and walking away. What was _that_ supposed to mean? Did Yamada not know that she was Ayane’s and Ayane’s only? Clearly not if she was planning on doing who-knows-what, who-knows-where with the literal scum at the bottom of the barrel of people at their school. Hands clenched, Ayane’s feet went to follow after Shidesu.

“Aishi-senpai?” Ayane’s ears perked up. She found herself stopping. She had let the school drown out into the background, but one voice managed to break through – so easily too. How annoying. Gogo moved herself closer. The exterior of sweetness left her voice some as she whispered, “What are you doing?”

“Shidesu is meeting with Senpai tomorrow night,” Ayane whispered back.

“Yes, but that doesn’t give you a reason to just follow her outside of the school. What, are you planning to fight her or something?” Ayane shrugged. “What? She’ll pummel you into a pulp. She’s the strongest in the entire school. Come on, we can plan something together right now if you like. A direct attack wouldn’t be the best idea against someone like Shidesu-senpai.” Ayane only shrugged again. Not even Gogo was going to stop her. Her mind was set.

“I just want to talk to her.”

“With your fists? They’re clenched.” Ayane only glanced down at her hands. Her knuckles were turning white. “Please, don’t do this. You’re about to fight a losing battle, I promise you.”

“How do you know that this is a losing battle? I haven’t even fought yet.”

❋

Gogo frowned and gingerly pressed a cold compress against Ayane’s forehead. “What did I tell you?” She murmured. “I told you that you were about to fight a losing battle, but you didn’t listen.” Ayane pressed the compress against her forehead herself and waved Gogo off. The girl had instant cold packs stashed in the corner of the room.

“Why do you have these?” Gogo only shrugged.

“I have something to show you.” She went over to the table and picked up a document. “Check this out. This is Shidesu’s birth certificate—or should I say _Murasa’s_ birth certificate. Her real name is Murasa Osoro. She’s the little sister of Murasa Akabara, the leader of the gang back in the nineties and one of the victims, I’m sure you know.” Ayane nodded. “What’s interesting is that Murasa managed to keep this up ever since elementary school. I had no clue that she was related to Murasa Akabara until now. She really kept it under wraps.”

“First, you went from Hashimoto Seigo to Hashimoto Saigo.” Gogo’s frown deepened.

“It was just a typo! What do you want from me?” Ayane wasn’t finished.

“Second, Kizawa Suzuko became Kizana Sunobu. Third, Murasa Osoro became Shidesu Osoro. Is Megami hiding a secret name and identity too? Let me guess: she’s the long lost daughter of Akumu Shaneru, the Student Council president slash victim of the nineties?”

“Impossible. I already checked and I found nothing too shady about her. She’s the blood daughter of Saiko Mukuro and still the heiress to Saikou Corp. It would have been fun to expose a scandal though. Well, actually…” Gogo turned back to her computers. “Since I was looking up information on everyone, I decided to do you too for fun, but I found something strange. See?” Gogo brought up an image on one of the screens. “This is your birth certificate. If you look closely at the spot where it’s supposed to say your parents’ names, it’s smudged out.” Ayane looked at the screen. It looked legitimate, except…

“My birth certificate at home has ‘Aishi Rokuro’ and ‘Aishi Ryoba’ written on it.”

“Is it from Kumamoto Medical Center?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, but look at this.” She brought up the certificate that Ayane had been talking about on another screen. “The one that I found wasn’t the type of birth certificate that you receive from a hospital like the one you have, but a document that was a representation of the registration of a birth—meaning that after you were born, someone had gone to get this made to document it to get your vital records in. This doesn’t have verification from a midwife or a doctor like the second one does and no hospital label, but a governmental one.” Gogo glanced at Ayane from the corner of your eye. “So, are you sure that you were born in Kumamoto Medical Center?”

“Perhaps not then.”

“The parents’ names are smudged too… I would suggest that you’re adopted, but obviously you’re an Aishi. You’re a carbon copy of Aishi Ayano.” Gogo sighed. “More things to figure out,” she said under her breath. “I’ll tell you if I find anything out about this.”

“Alright.”

“I still can’t believe that you tried to fight Murasa. I mean, the girl is eighteen centimeters taller than you! You’re so short, you barely had a chance.”

Ayane huffed. “You’re calling _me_ short? Hypocrite.”

“Oh, you didn’t notice when you were helping me down the stairs?” Gogo slowly rose from her wheelchair. “We’re the same height: one fifty-two centimeters.” A small smile graced her face. “We’re _both_ pretty short. Speaking of which,” she settled back in her seat again, “only one of the gang members, Koyama Akari, is your height.”

“Why do you use a wheelchair?”

“Huh?”

“If you can stand and walk, why do you use a wheelchair?”

“Oh, you don’t know?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t have asked.”

“Sorry, sorry. Um, I have osteoporosis—more specifically: idiopathic juvenile osteoporosis. That just means that I developed it seemingly out of nowhere during my childhood, which is pretty uncommon. They discovered it when I was little. One day I was roughhousing with some boys in the neighborhood and I fell, broke a bone, it basically took forever to heal, and the rest is history.” Gogo shrugged. _Roughhousing with some boys in the neighborhood_ , Ayane repeated in her mind. Little girls didn’t typically play with little boys, especially so violently, but Ayane held her tongue. “Your suggestion to disguise yourself as one of the gang members might actually be a pretty good idea. Koyama also has a motorcycle helmet, so you can cover your face up with that.” The smile left Gogo’s face. “See how you come up with much better ideas after sitting down and rationally and logically thinking things through? Getting nearly knocked out by the tallest girl on campus wasn’t the brightest idea, right?” Ayane only sighed. “I also found out that Murasa used to sweep the local shrine in town during her junior high years. Ooh, here’s something good: she used to be part of the Occult Club for a little while during her first year here. What do you think about that?”

“I think I have my idea together now.”

“Oh, yeah? Are you planning to use her superstitious ways against her or something?”

“You’ll see.” Ayane returned the cold compress in the pile with the rest. “How fast can you get me the head of a cow?”

“Faster than I got you the rope and gasoline, need be.”

“Good.”

❋

Stalking was an art form to Ayane, no, to the _entire Aishi family_ , actually. It must have been in their DNA. Ayane trailed after the gang, completely unnoticed. They called themselves “The Ivory Tigers.” What a joke. Ayane was the tigress now, shadowing her soon-to-be rabbit. A rabbit that puffed out its chest and boasted and filled itself with pride but fell asleep while racing against the turtle.

There weren’t too many members in the gang, and none had really been around during Ayane’s (embarrassing) defeat against Shidesu – or _Murasa_ now.

“So, Murasa was in the Occult Club and was dating fellow member Shiba Mako, full name: Shiba Shimako. She’s the cousin of Shiba ‘Sweetie’ Sumiko and Sumito, two more of the twin’s victims—the former Cooking Club president and her little brother that got caught in the crossfire.” Gogo had given Ayane a device to place in her ear so she could discreetly listen to the other. It was virtually invisible to an outsider’s eye and quiet enough just for Ayane to hear. “Shiba Mako was part of the gang for a little while too, once she got involved with Murasa. Everything was honey and roses until Murasa caught Shiba cheating on her with another member of the gang. Shiba was so caught up in guilt that she was planning to kill herself, but Yamada-senpai saved her in the nick of time.” Ayane quickly ducked behind a house. She nearly blew her cover at the mention of Yamada. What was she doing at the Shiba household? “You know how Yamada-senpai is a teaching assistant, right? Well, one of the students in the class that she assists in is Shiba Sayaka—Shiba Mako’s little sister. Sayaka had gotten sick and there was apparently ‘no one home’ who could pick her up, so Yamada-senpai took it into her own hands to drop the girl off. When she got there, she saw Shiba tying a noose in the kitchen and managed to stop her.”

 _Ah, Senpai, you save lives too?_ How perfect could a person get?

“Murasa feels like she owes something to Yamada-senpai. That’s why she’s been all over her lately.” Ayane nodded, even though Gogo couldn’t see her. She understood everything now. “You should be reaching the Koyama household soon. Have fun.” Ayane heard a click and Gogo was gone.

Koyama Akari called out that she was going to meet the gang in front of the school incinerator in a few hours before she went inside of her house. Ayane sat back and watched from the window. Another woman was inside – Koyama Akane, Koyama’s older sister (info supplied by Gogo!), but she was unimportant. The Koyama’s were nothing more than insignificant. They were only minor stepping stones on the way to Ayane’s ultimate objective. As the two sisters bickered, Ayane discreetly took a few pictures with the camera Gogo supplied her. She need some good photographs that would to get the gist of the house – the furniture, the color, everything that was necessary for the plan. Ayane left after that.

❋

Ayane placed the flower that Yamada had put on Kizana’s desk on Murasa’s nightstand. Superstition one: lilies were symbols of death – and Ayane was giving a double dosage with a flower that had actually been given to a deceased student.

The girl’s room was… _interesting_. No matter. Ayane didn’t care enough to pass judgment. The room had lots of pictures and posters and some of the walls were even spray painted. A folding screen – black and all very Japanese with paintings of cloudy skies and green pheasants – separated the room in half. Apparently, after Murasa Akabara was murdered, Murasa’s parents decided to knock the wall down that had separated the girls’ rooms and give Murasa Osoro one big room, but Murasa put a folding screen up, still parting between her own room and the room that was once her sister’s.

Ayane then went to move Murasa’s mattress (a rich kid who preferred a simple, humble mattress over a potential king-sized bed? – wow) so it could face the north of the room. Superstition two: one’s bed should never face the north because corpses are positioned so that their heads face north in funerals.

“It looks like after the whole drama, Shiba left the Occult Club and was beckoned by Saiko to join Student Council,” Gogo said in Ayane’s ear, “and then Murasa left the club also and devoted all of her time to the gang and soon rose up as the leader. That’s that.” Ayane reached into her backpack and pulled out the bowls of rice she brought with her as she listened. She lined them up around the bed and then proceeded to uprightly stick wooden chopsticks in each bowl. Superstition three: during funerals, cups of rice with upright chopsticks are placed next to corpses, so a person should never do such an unholy act with their own utensils amongst the living.

Ayane sighed as she moved to leave the house. The Murasa’s could be home at any moment. She was lucky to get such an early opening to the home. It was like the couple went back and forth from not being home for weeks and then not leaving home for weeks. Murasa was usually out at night, so that problem was taken care of. Ayane pulled the gloves off of her hands as the crisp night air breezed past her. “This is going to take a while,” she murmured once Gogo stopped talking.

“You have until the end of February. Do as you like. Go wild.”

“Do I have a status on the lighthouse?” Buraza Town used to be famous for its lighthouse, but in such a technologically advanced era, the lighthouse quickly ran out of popularity and overall usefulness.

“Yes actually! It’s basically abandoned. No one even sneaks into it or anything. It has a lock, but guess who got the key.”

“Good job.” Ayane bit her tongue. Did a _compliment_ just actually slip between her lips? Gogo seemed taken aback also, from the way she paused and took in an excited breath before she continued to speak.

“Thank you, Ayane! I’ll start making preparations now.” _Click_.

❋

Seeing the big and bad Murasa literally grow more and more paranoid as the days ticked by almost caused a tingle of satisfaction to travel down Ayane’s spine. Surely, there would be shivering if Murasa was on the list of people who were allowed to evoke an emotional response out of Aishi Ayane. Unfortunately, she was not, so Ayane was stuck watching from the shadows, silently, as Murasa’s eyes flickered back and forth, as her hands trembled whenever she pulled out a cigarette, as her voice grew less commanding and more accusatory.

The best part about it: Ayane could devote her time to the lighthouse. Murasa was already shaken by the core with a few acts. Ayane had decorated her unused room with white burial kimonos on a free day. She had smirked in her mind when Gogo had presented footage of Murasa having a meltdown when she discovered the garments. Ayane had touched the fading bruise on her forehead as she watched, making remarks of petty revenge in her mind to go alongside her mental smirk.

Superstition four: hanging up funeral clothes in someone’s house was just a fucked up thing to do.

 _Click_. “Is today the day?” It was Friday, the thirty-first of January. Ayane did the quick math in her head. She had started on Wednesday, the fifteenth. She and Gogo had been putting in work for the past sixteen days straight.

“Today’s the day,” Ayane whispered back. “Are you seeing this?”

“Yes, I’m looking right now. We have front row seats.”

Murasa, backed by her gang, and Shiba, trailing behind the Student Council, were about to cross paths in the hallway. Ayane leaned against the wall to get just out of eyesight, but to still watch. Tensions were high in the hall. Everything seemed to go silent for a moment as if the two groups were only going to pass by one another peacefully, when suddenly Murasa stopped in her tracks and reached out to grab Shiba by the arm, really digging her fingers in. She hissed in the girl’s ear, “I’m on to you,” before pushing her back with the rest of the Council. Murasa only huffed as she continued to lead the gang down the rest of the hallway.

Ayane had never paid much mind to a shriveling enigma types that were ushered into the Occult Club before, especially someone like Shiba Mako: ringleader of the freaks. She must have had an ounce of courage in her though to have actually been part of the gang and to be become so close to someone like Murasa Osoro.

“What the fuck is wrong with Shidesu?” One member of the Student Council muttered.

“Mako-chan, is your arm okay? Do we need to take you to the nurse?” Shiba shook her head.

“N-No, I’m fine. Thanks.” She was rubbing the reddening indentations on her arm though. “O-Osoro… She must be going through something right now. It isn’t like… I-It isn’t like I’m not used to her taking her anger out on me. You all know t-that.” She let out a slow breath before nodding, signaling the group to continue moving. Everyone was still grumbling out concerns, but they walked on.

❋

Murasa Osoro had P.E. after morning homeroom. It was easy to track and memorize her movements and usual schedule for Ayane. The girl was pretty predictable. She usually didn’t arrive at school for morning homeroom, especially during the beginning of the week (and now _especially_ with her growing paranoia), but she always showed up for P.E. – her favorite class it seemed like. She always brought a bottle of water with her, placed it outside of her locker, and then drunk it throughout the day in the rest of her classes (if she decided to show up for them).

Basically: it was pretty easy to slip a little _something something_ (supplied by Gogo!) into the girl’s bottle.

Ayane correctly predicted that Murasa was going to skip the rest of the day. Her hunch that Murasa wanted to be alone (meaning: a good bark at her fellow Tigers, “Don’t follow me, dammit!”) was also proven correct. Ayane, during her lunch period, watched with Gogo as Murasa stumbled toward the back of her house. “All of the cameras are working—home to lighthouse,” Gogo quietly said. Ayane only nodded. “At the end of the day and all throughout the weekend, you can finally work your magic.” Ayane nodded again.

❋

Murasa was the one who was weak. Murasa was the one who had to lean against Ayane’s side as she teetered on her feet and staggered about. Murasa was the one who was spluttering nonsense from between her bruised and scabbed lips.

In the cover of the night (ah, even the moon was shielding itself into darkness for this unholy act), Ayane led the girl to her demise.

The Buraza Town Light had three levels to it with a long, windy golden staircase that led to each. Gogo had nearly insisted upon creating her own locks for the opening on the lighthouse and the hatches leading to each floor within.

First floor: Koyama Akari.

Ayane managed to easily find a (cheap) prototype of the typical Koyama Akari outfit: yellow biker helmet with the visor perfectly tinted. She slung a male uniform jacket over her shoulders like a cape and pinned her skirt up slightly to shorten it. The final touch was to wrap cloth around her hands up to her arms.

She sat Murasa in the chair across from her. The girl automatically leaned her head against the table. _Click_. “She should be coming to any moment now.” Ayane knew that. “All of the cameras are working.” Ayane leaned against her own seat and crossed her arms.

“Fucking shit…” Murasa mumbled as she started to pick her head up again. She ran her fingers through her already tousled hair. She blinked a few times as she looked around the room. It was as near of a replica to the Koyama kitchen as Ayane could get. Murasa’s eyes slowly opened and closed as she faced Ayane – or “Koyama.” “Hey, Ko, what happened?” Ayane only shrugged. “Yeah…” Murasa stretched her arms out. “Got anything to drink?” Ayane shook her head. “Oh? You usually got something good in the fridge.” Murasa rose to her feet. Too quickly; she nearly fell back down again. “Shit,” she muttered. “Did I get fucked up before school? I don’t remember. Ko, do you?” Ayane shook her head. “Ugh. You’re never any help.”

Murasa eased her way toward the refrigerator. “Your sister usually has the good shit in stock, so I’m surprised. I bet you’re just saying that you don’t have anything because your lazy ass doesn’t feel like getting up and getting it fo—” Ayane turned toward the fridge. Murasa was _paling_.

It had brown fur around the muzzle, but it grew lighter around the ears. The nose ring was golden and fogged up from being stored in such a cold environment for so long. A pungent odor immediately escaped the confines of the refrigerator and filled the room. _Drip, drip, drip_. Ah, yes. There was still blood leaking along the shelves of the fridge. Some managed to get on the tips of Murasa’ shoes. She was stuck in place, staring. “W-W-Wh—What the fu—” She was stuck stammering.

Urban legend one: the story of the cow head – _Gozu_ – was so gruesome, so horrible, so terrifying that all who heard it would automatically go mad, so no one ever told it.

Murasa slammed the fridge shut. The table shook. “Koyama,” Murasa’s eyes shone with unbridled fury, “what’s this? Is this some type of joke, some type of prank? Because I don’t think it’s fucking funny.” Murasa growled and kicked the fridge. “Answer me, dammit!” The fridge door flew open and the cow head tumbled out. Murasa shrieked and fell to her knees. She backed herself away from the disembodied head and toward the wall. “G-Get that shit away from me!” Aw, the poor thing was trembling.

Ayane pushed her chair back and took a few steps toward the head. She picked it up by the ear and looked at it. It was a handsome looking animal, really. Too bad Murasa seemed to think otherwise. She tossed it in the girl’s lap. Murasa quickly threw it off of her with a yelp, but blood was already soaked into the front of her white uniform shirt. She continued to yell expletives as she ripped her stained shirt off, leaving herself in her undershirt only and exposing her own arm wraps.

“Koyama, what in the fuck’s name is wrong with you?” Murasa lunged at Ayane. Ayane only had to step aside. The girl was weakened mentally and physically. She lost balance and plummeted down to the ground, right into a pool of animal blood. Her eyes widened and she tried to get back up to her feet, only to teeter and fall back again. “What the hell i—” Ayane used the window of confusion as an opportunity to step in and strike Murasa across the forehead.

The girl, further dazed, slammed back to the ground, same how Ayane had fallen when Murasa had hit her. Except Ayane had bloodlust flowing through her veins instead of simple annoyance. She threw another hit across the girl’s cheek, another in the nose. Another and another until involuntary tears were streaking down Murasa’s face and blood was dripping from her nose down her mouth and chin.

 _Click_. “Enough.” Ayane was only just beginning to see stars, but she listened. Murasa spit a glob of pinkish saliva on the ground and tried to get to her feet, but Ayane kicked the girl back down again. “Day one begins,” Gogo whispered. .

❋

Murasa was banging against the door on Saturday morning. No one was going to come. Ayane sighed. What a fruitless endeavor. Murasa’s head swiveled upward when the hatch to the second floor unlocked. She looked back and forth between the lighthouse entrance and the hatch before deciding to go up the stairs. She tripped over her own feet on the way up.

Ayane followed after. She had left the lighthouse only to eat a quick dinner before going back in. One feature that she was sure to include in her plan was an obvious lack of food and water. The last thing that Murasa had was her tampered water on Friday. Ayane was sure that dehydration was already beginning to settle in.

Second floor: Murasa Osoro.

Murasa fell to her knees the moment she stepped on the new level. “Is… Is this…” She brought her hands to the side of her face. Drying blood flecked against her skin and the front of her body. She smeared some as she tried to stand back up again. She leaned against the wall for support. “This… This isn’t my room. T-The walls…” Ah, yes, there were a few subtle features here and there that differed with the actual room, but it was a pretty damn close copy if Ayane could say so herself.

The walls didn’t feature artsy music posters or gang tags. No, striking images of various symbols of bad luck and health were decorated everywhere. Murasa’s name, her _real_ name, was spray painted onto the walls too. Murasa backed up to the mattress toward the side of the room. “Were you the piece of shit that broke into my house and did all that evil shit? What the fuck did I ever do to you, Koyama?” Murasa’s fingers crept underneath one of the posters on the wall. “Wait until the other members get here. You’re going to be in deep, deep shit. I’ll be sure of it.” Ayane could’ve laughed at that, but she only shook her helmeted head. “What the fuck does that mean? And why the hell aren’t you talking to me? Fucking coward.” Murasa laughed. She tore the poster off of the wall. And another and another, but she was clearly overexerting herself. “F-Fucking piece of shit. What’s this supposed to do, fuck with my mind? You’re not doing a good job at it.” She tore down another poster. Murasa’s words said one thing, but her actions said another. Her hands were trembling as they dug under the tape that held everything together. The look in her eye when she had first dropped to her knees in the room didn’t go amiss either.

Ayane moved behind Murasa and kicked her in the knees, pushing her back onto the ground. She barely landed on the mattress. Murasa’s hands gripped the sheets, but gained no purchase to pull herself back up. She chuckled, showing off the redness that had stained between her teeth. “You… Y-You like seeing me on my knees and crawling around, huh, you sadistic fuck?” Ayane only used her feet to roll the girl onto her back. Murasa winced. “Ugh, my head… Ko, stop…”

Ayane went toward the drawer in the room. She pulled out one of the leftover white funeral garments that she had stored in Murasa’s room. She forced the girl to sit up and dressed her in the garb. Murasa was getting too weak to even efficiently fight back. How pathetic. She was supposed to the strongest girl in the school, the leader of the best gang in town, but she was turning into a shell of a person all because a few “eerie” and “ghostly” signs.

“Why the… Why’d you put this on me? Take it…” Murasa tried to untie the sash around her waist, but her fingers were fumbling too hard. “Take it off… Take it off of me…” Her hands moved back to the sides of her head. “I hate you!” She spat out. She tried the grab the side of the wall closest to her. “I’m going to fucking rip your head off, Koyama! I hate you!” She slipped on the discarded posters on the ground and landed on the floor instead of the mattress. Ayane could see the air knock out of the girl’s body. She turned on the side of her body that wasn’t bruised and coughed. “I hate you, I hate you. I fucking hate you so much.”

“Good,” Ayane said. “Hate me.” Murasa’s eyes widened.

“Y-You’re not—”

“No. I’m not.” Ayane could finally pull off the stifling helmet.

“Aishi!” Murasa got onto her hands and knees. “What the fuck is this sick shit?” She placed one knee against the mattress and the other on the wall. She was barely managing to stand.

“This is what happens when you try to get close to Yamada-senpai.” Ayane shrugged, nonchalant. “She’s mine. No one else’s. You should have known.”

“Ugh, what are you going on abou—no, wait until I get over there.” Murasa took a moment to collect what was left of her bearings and tried to lunge at Ayane, but all Ayane needed to do was throw the helmet at the girl – straight in the chest. The breath was once again knocked from Murasa and she all but collapsed onto the ground again.

❋

Sunday morning, Murasa was dragging her body up to the next and last level. Ayane walked closely behind the feeble girl. When Murasa paused to catch her breath or was nearly about to tumble back down the stairs, she received a firm kick in the ribs. Murasa was too near exhaustion to even have a retort or give off a snarl. She only gasped and took the hits.

Final floor: Murasa Akabara.

A red folding screen was the first thing they came upon in the room. Murasa wordlessly reached out toward it, but her hand fell back onto the floor. She dragged herself closer and used what was left of her strength to push it down.

“A-Aka…” Murasa shielded her face in her arms.

It had been fairly easy to obtain Murasa Akabara’s funeral photos. Murasa kept them in the room behind the sliding screen. It had been fairly easy to recreate the scene also. A display of withered lilies and plastic fruit with a photograph of Akabara was in the middle. Except the photograph was special, not the generic school picture that had been used at Akabara’s actual funeral. Gogo managed to find a few snippets of nineties security camera footage, and just of the perfect moment: Akabara, bloodied and tied up, head hanging low, knife plunged in her throat.

Murasa tried to slam her fist against the ground, but she couldn’t muster up the strength. “I-I’m sorry, Aka… I’m sorry.” She lifted her head from her arms. She was sniffing and shriveling. Not something to be expected of a gang leader, but certainly something expected of some Occult Club nobody. Voluntary, hot tears were racing down her cheeks now. “Is this a… Is this a punishment?”

“Yes,” Ayane answered. She walked around the Murasa’s frail form toward the other side of the room.

“F-For… Is it for v-violence? Drinking and smoking? Sex? W-W-What did I do? What did I…?”

“Have you forgotten already?” Ayane returned to Murasa once she retrieved the rope and bag she had stashed in the corner of the room. “This is your punishment for getting close to Yamada Hanako.”

“Y-Yamada…” Murasa swallowed, or _tried to_ , but she nearly choked and coughed again. “I-I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing. It’s pathetic.” Ayane pulled out a chair and stood on top of it to sling the rope over the hook she had attached to the ceiling. “Come here.” Murasa’s mind was so hazy, that she actually tried to obey the command for a moment. She did her best to crawl over to Ayane. Her movements had grown even more sluggish.

Ayane took the girl by the arms and hoisted her onto the chair. She had gotten just the perfect length of rope. Murasa could barely sit up, so it was good at the rope wasn’t only long enough to be of usage for someone who was standing. Ayane leaned down so she could be of eye level with the girl. Her pupils were dilated and unfocused. “Aishi…” Ah, so she wasn’t completely unresponsive just yet. “Why… are you doing this… to me?” Her voice was hoarse and broke around the syllables.

Ayane chose not to answer. “I calculate that you should be dead by tonight or in the morning at the most, but would you like to end your suffering now?” Murasa’s head moved forward. It was as if she was just noticing the rope and bag for the first time. “If so, you have to do it yourself.” She dropped the bag in Murasa’s lap. “Don’t get discouraged. Look, I already made a noose for you. I truly can be kind sometimes.” Ayane took a step back and positioned herself just out of sight from the camera positioned in the center of Akabara’s “shrine.”

Murasa grabbed the bag in her lap. “I-I…” Her eyes tightened shut for a moment as more tears pooled in them. “I-I don’t want to suffer, but I… I don’t… want to… die either.”

“You’re going to die either way. Might as well end your suffering now.”

“B-But—”

“Would you prefer to have a knife plunged in your throat like your sister?”

“I—”

“Because I was planning to be merciful, but I could do this myself if you so desire.”

“D-Don’t… Don’t kill me, please.” Her hands were tightening around the bag.

“How different. Kizana had been begging for it right until the very end.” Ayane snatched the bag from Murasa’s hands. The girl wasn’t able to put up any type of fight anymore. She was the pitiful shell of who she used to be. No longer was she grand and supreme. Now she was quite the opposite. Now she was getting a bag enclosed over her head and a noose tightened around her neck.

Ayane hoisted Murasa’s body up until her feet left the ground. She then secured the rope with another hook. Murasa was gagging and heaving. She managed to get one of her hands up toward the rope, but she couldn’t even pull it a hair away. Ayane tightened the restraints. Murasa’s feet swung, tried to reach for the chair, but she only knocked it over in her attempt.

 _Click_. “Pull her up some more.” Ayane did as told. “Keep going, keep going,” Gogo instructed, “and stop.” Murasa’s head was nearly touching the hook on the ceiling now. “Drop her.” Ayane let go. Murasa’s body dropped to the ground with a sickening crack. Ayane walked over to her. She crouched down and pulled the bag off. “You want her head, don’t you?”

“I do. And then I want to put the cow’s head on her body.”

“I put a knife on the first floor, just to the side of the fridge.”

“Thank you.”

“No, thank _you_ for being so kind to me.” _Click_.


	4. bloodied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _bloodied (blood•ied) [v.] — no one is allowed in your bedroom; you’re sleeping alone in your bed; check your window; she’s at your window._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _in this chapter_ :  
> \- non-consensual drug usage.

_MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3_

_6:58_

.

Typical. The day started too early.

With a slice of toast in mouth and backpack hurriedly slung over the shoulder, Shiba rushed out of the house. “I wish I had enough time for Japanese-style breakfast,” she muttered. But waking up literally two minutes before she was expected to arrive at school could only call for Western-style: slab some butter on a slice of toast and go. Shiba sometimes wished that Saiko hadn’t invited her to join the Student Council. Her life had become stress after stress, but she knew that once the end of the day came, and the rest of the Council and Saiko thanked her for her work and wished her a safe walk home, then it was worth it. The Occult Club had been nice, yeah, but something about the Student Council felt more real. The Occult Club was about cheap cigarettes and cheaper crystals, but there was something _familial_ about the Student Council that Shiba would always be thankful for.

Her phone buzzed the moment she placed one foot past the gates. She quickly checked the time on her lockscreen as she gobbled down the rest of her toast. “Ah, not late,” she breathed out. Shiba’s new close friend, Ito Sara, often showed up to school early and looked outside of the Student Council room’s window, waiting for Shiba to show up. Shiba would get a text from Ito saying if she was late or not and what to do to make Saiko not too annoyed with her tardiness. There was no late message today though. That was something to be happy about at least. But it wasn’t a message from Ito. Shiba frowned. She didn’t have the largest contact list in the world. It might have been a wrong number then, she guessed. She checked the message anyway.

It was only a video. Shiba bit her lip as she clicked on the video and pressed play. Hopefully it wasn’t some type of ad or weird virus or something. _No_. It was quite the opposite. It took Shiba a second to recognize who it was. Which was surprising, since she was able to recognize _that_ body type and _that_ hair anywhere. Even with the head covered by a bag, she would be able to recognize who it was. Ah. _That’s_ why. Shiba’s mind was running on empty. The body was so skinny, the hair was even more tangled than usual – that’s why she hadn’t recognized who it was right away. The video looped too, like some type of curse. Over and over again, she watched Murasa’s body go up, up, and up and then drop, ending with the definite sound of her neck snapping.

“O-O-Osoro…?” Shiba stopped the video. She must have let it replay over and over again a million times before she robotically moved her thumb to stop it. She glanced down at her hands. _Oh_. They were shaking and her knuckles had turned white. “Osoro,” Shiba repeated, like it was some type of confirmation. She nearly screamed as her phone vibrated again. It was an actual text message from the same number. Not a video. At least… she could find some relief in that… “’Show this video to the Student Council only. Do not show the authorities or else Shiba Sayaka will be killed.’” Shiba couldn’t breathe for a moment.

And then she was running.

.

.

_MONDAY, FEBRUARY 3_

_7:05_

.

Saiko put a careful hand on Shiba’s shoulder. The poor girl was trembling. A fierce, familiar sense of protectiveness flowed through Saiko’s veins. She had always seen Shiba Shimako as a broken bird and inviting her to the nest which was the Student Council seemed like the best way to heal her. Now to see her broken again was concerning – especially given the circumstances. Saiko needed to only watch the video and read over the message a few times to know it was real. Death threats were commonplace within Saikou Corp and even with the Student Council at times, and Saiko had learned to deal with them and differentiate the real from the fake – and this certainly felt _real_. In fact, Saiko could confidently declare that she had never seen something so authentic before.

“I-I-I c-can’t have s-something happen t-to Sayaka-chan, Saiko-senpai… I-I c-c-can’t,” Saiko sobbed. Saiko knew that the poor girl’s stutter returned whenever she felt overwhelmed. Saiko tightened her grip on her underclasswoman’s shoulder.

“For now, we do as the message says. No authorities and this only stays within the Council, understand?” Shiba shakily nodded. “Good. We _will_ get your sister back safe and sound, Shiba. You have my word.” And Shiba knew good and well that Saiko’s word was unbreakable.

.

.

_TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4_

_14:37_

.

“That bastard sent me a picture of my mother tied up!”

“They sent me a picture of my baby brother tied up and blindfolded in the middle of nowhere!”

“M-My aunt—! Saiko-senpai, m—”

“Silence!” Saiko commanded. Immediately, the Council was silent. “No one is targeting the Council on my watch! We _will_ get to the bottom of this and retrieve all of your family members safe and sound. This is my guarantee.”

“S-Saiko-senpai…” Saiko immediately turned toward the person who called her. “I couldn’t help but notice that… you didn’t get a message…?” The Council murmured in agreement. Saiko tightened her hands behind her back. Her not receiving a message _would_ certainly look suspicious in the eyes of the rest of her fellow Council members.

As if right on cue, her phone rang. Saiko wasn’t one for checking her phone in the middle of a meeting, but now was possibly the most appropriate time than ever. “Excuse me,” Saiko murmured as she turned on her phone.

All Saiko could do was open and close her mouth. A rush of emotions flowed through her body, before she calmed down again. At first: panic. A picture of her father, blindfolded and tied up, was sent to her, but then she realized that the man in the picture was not her father. It was a damn good lookalike, and the blindfold helped some, but it was _not_ her father. A second later she received an additional message instructing her to “play along” or else her father would really be hurt. The message disappeared afterward.

Saiko wanted to vomit.

“Look.” She hated lying. She hated lying so much. Lying and being lied to were the worst feelings in the world. But… for now _she_ had been chosen to lie, for some reason. Perhaps the perpetrator knew how much she detested dishonesty and was getting off from seeing her squirm. Saiko calmed herself down again before any heat could travel to her face and give her away. “I just received a message of my father being held captive, so there is no need to turn against me.” She set her phone down with more force than needed, causing some of the Council members that sat close to her to jump back. “Excuse me,” she said again.

.

.

_TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4_

_17:11_

.

Ito grabbed onto Shiba’s sleeve suddenly. “M-Mako-chan…?” Shiba gulped. Ito hadn’t said her name with such fear since she suggested that they go to the nurse after Murasa had grabbed her in the hallway. Shiba gulped. It was unusual for her to have to be the strong one. It was almost laughable really, but Shiba tried her best to channel her inner Saiko, took a deep breath and turned to her shaking friend. If she had dated the head of the delinquents ( _and_ had the nerve to cheat on the head of the delinquents…), then she could do this too.

“Sara-chan, we have to do this,” she took Ito’s hand and squeezed it tightly, “not only for Osoro, but for our families. We have to get to the bottom of this.” Ito bit her lip. “W-What’s wrong?” Had Shiba done something wrong again?

“I just don’t get it… How you still like Shidesu, despite everything she’s done to you.”

“O-Oh…” Shiba sucked in a breath. At least they were making progress toward the lighthouse now. “She had done bad things to me and I had done bad things to her.” Shiba willed herself to shrug. “Hey, look, there’s a weird lock on the door.” When Shiba touched the lock, it fell off. Shiba and Ito exchanged looks before Shiba pushed the door open all in one go. Ito quickly covered her eyes.

“I-I can’t look! Tell me what you see!” She squeaked.

“…Nothing.”

.

.

_TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 4_

_17:20_

.

“Nothing? It’s just empty? Are you kidding me?” Saiko bit her tongue. It wasn’t wise to use such aggressive words while speaking to two sensitive girls. “Excuse me,” she murmured, “I can’t believe it.” She let out a slow sigh. “Thank you for telling me this.” The girls’ combined nervous voices took over the phone for a moment. “Please don’t worry about me. I’m just going to check in on something at work before my acupuncture appointment and then I’ll be going home. Goodnight, Shiba and goodnight, Ito.” She hung up then. Saiko was already in her car, halfway to Saikou Corp. Being the heiress of one of the top corporations specializing in technology had its quirks. She managed to track the image that she had received of her “father” to none other than the local location of Saikou Corp. Driving at night was usually a calming activity for Saiko, but not now. She was on edge for once. She had keep mentally reminding herself to loosen her grip on her steering wheel.

Her phone buzzed the moment she pulled into the parking lot. It was the number that she had received the photograph of her “father” from again, telling her not to enter the building. Before the Council meeting was adjourned, everyone laid their phones out on the table, showing that it was all from the same number. The number was of their area code too, but that didn’t exactly mean that the perpetrator had to be in or from their area though. Saiko shut her car door and the moment she took another step toward the building, her phone buzzed again with another threat. She smirked. _Bingo_.

The perimeter of the building, roughly bordering around the end of the parking lot, triggered a message. After ten different messages, they looped over again. Figuring this out alleviated some tension from Saiko. The perpetrator didn’t put too much thought into Saikou Corp. Saiko went into the building anyway, ignoring the constant buzzing of her phone.

Nothing.

With another sigh and automatic text message, Saiko returned to her vehicle. She leaned against her door, arms crossed for a moment. After a good few minutes of simple inhaling and exhaling, Saiko took out her phone again. Without a second thought, she called the cryptic number. She received the unexpected: a dial tone, and was surprised again when the call actually picked up. Static at first, and then a robotic voice: _“Kagome, kagome, the bird in the basket, when, oh, when will it come out? In the night of dawn, the crane and turtle slipped. Who is behind you now? Kagome, kagome, the bird in the basket, when, oh, when wi—”_ Saiko hung up. Ugh, it was just that one creepy nursery rhyme on repeat with an indistinguishable voice program. She swung her car door open. A million ideas ran through her head on how to punish the perp once she found them. No one messed with her Council. _No one_.

.

.

_WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5_

_16:00_

.

Saiko set her hands firmly on the table, immediately grabbing the Council’s attention. “I spoke with the Photography Club and they promised momentarily to not goof off and keep an eye out for any suspicious behavior.” Shiba was raising her hand. Saiko nodded to her. She caught the way the girl’s hands trembled as she smoothed down her skirt as she stood up. Saiko bit the inside of her lip. She needed to do better to protect her underclasswomen. She could _always_ do better.

“I-I…” Shiba cleared her throat. “I spoke to Osor—or, um, _Shidesu’s_ , um, _friends_ and I-I didn’t give them the full s-s-story or anything! Don’t worry! I, um, asked them about Shidesu. T-They said that they haven’t seen her since she a-asked them not to follow her home when she left school last Friday. Um…” Shiba tapped her nails on the desk. Saiko figured that speaking to the delinquents would be a difficult task for Shiba to do, but she was courageous enough to take it upon herself to do it anyway. “Koyama Akari, who was like Shidesu’s right-hand woman, said that she received a message from Shidesu that said she was going to Kumamoto to visit their shrine and get s-some of her favorite cigarettes. She had gotten the message Saturday morning and nothing seemed to out of the ordinary.” Shiba nodded again before she sat down.

“All we get from that,” Saiko said, “is that Shidesu had been targeted somewhere between a timeframe of Friday morning to Sunday night, possibly on her way to Kumamoto. It seems most likely on Saturday though.” Saiko pressed her finger against her chin. “But who would do such a heinous thing to a fellow student? Not even the worst of delinquents would commit such an act.” A silence fell over the already tense Council.

The projector that sat in the front of the room clicked on. Saiko closed her eyes. “Who turned that on?” When she opened her eyes again, everyone had a look of absolute fear in her eyes. “Excuse me,” Saiko quickly said. Her tone must have been too harsh.

“S-Saiko-senpai,” one member said, “w-w-we didn—i-i-it turned on by itself!”

Saiko looked up at the screen. It was a picture of everyone’s captured family members, all standing side by side, blindfolded and gagged, hands and feet tied up. Saiko scanned over the photograph as fast as she could. She dedicated it to memory. She didn’t know how long the image was going to be up. Looking down to grab her phone to take a picture could take too long. No one looked to be in particularly bad shape, so that was good. The picture was in black and white, so it took some careful looking for any blood, bruises, cuts, or any other signs of harm. Everyone looked hunched over and scared – a sign that they were fearful of their capturer. A sign hung over their heads. It looked like a white drape and printed across it (nothing handwritten – _great_ ) was: _“BRING YAMADA HANAKO, CLASS 3-2, TO THE STUDENT COUNCIL MEETING. FRIDAY. 20:00.”_ Just as Saiko finished reading the message, the image disappeared.

Some people screamed when every phone in the room simultaneously rang. It was a text with the message on the drape again.

“Saiko-senpai, what are we going to do?!”

“Simple,” Saiko swiftly answered. “We have all of Thursday to plan our counterattack. We are going to spend the day ‘confiscating’ anything that looks like a weapon around the school and we will personally monitor any suspicious behavior alongside the Photography Club. We are only going to use these weapons as a form of defense if the moment comes. _No attacking_. Got that?”

“Yes, ma’am!” Everyone said.

“I will personally contact Yamada-san and go about things with her.”

.

.

_WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 5_

_18:49_

.

“Excuse me for calling at such a late time, Yamada-san.”

“It’s okay, Saiko, I don’t mind! What’s up?”

“Excuse me for being intrusive, but when was the last time you had contact with Shidesu Osoro?”

“Oh, with Shidesu? Um… Let me check…” Saiko heard some shuffling around on the line. “We were supposed to meet up on Wednesday, the fifteenth of January, but she had to do something with her friends, so she rescheduled on Saturday, the eighteenth, but canceled again and never got back to me. I tried calling her, but that was when she started acting, like… really paranoid? Remember how she lashed out against Shiba Mako?”

“Yes, I remember that.” Shidesu must have known something between the fifteenth and the eighteenth that made her scared. Had she known that she was about to be attacked?

“Saiko, is there something wrong? You sound… tense. Sorry. You’re just usually known for always sounding calm, you know?”

“Yamada-san, I can’t beat around the bush. My top priority is to put a stop to anyone that poses a threat to Akademi Academy and its students. I’m calling you because I think someone may be stalking you.” Yamada gasped. “But don’t worry. I will do everything in my power to keep you safe.” Saiko then spent a good amount of time filling in Yamada on all of the details, and her fellow classmate grew dead silent through it all. “Yamada-san,” Saiko said after her explanation. The girl made a surprised noise, breaking the quiet on her end. “Is there anyone that you know that would do this to you?”

“I-I’m sorry.” Yamada cleared her throat. “I have to go check on something.” She hung up. Saiko rested her phone against her chin. Yamada knew something too, but what?

.

.

_THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6_

_13:00_

.

Uneasiness spread like the plague. Shiba should’ve thought about that initially. Seeing the Student Council suddenly go around all stiff and strained and searching around for weapons and watching people was having an expected effect on the rest of the student body. Shiba whispered to Ito that they needed to go as quickly as possible as to not rouse any more discomfort with everybody and her friend agreed.

A nice stack of weapons was laid out on the meeting table by the end of lunch. “Mako-chan?” Ito asked. Shiba looked up from her checklist. It looked like they had managed to cover the school all within the lunch period. Saiko was going to be proud.

“Yes?”

“Um, have you heard from Saiko-senpai lately?” Actually, now that Shiba thought about it, she hadn’t heard from Saiko all day. When she opened her mouth to answer, as if on cue, Saiko came into the room, with Yamada Hanako in tow.

Yamada bowed deeply. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience that I’ve brought upon everyone.” Her hair looked messy and her face was distraught. Shiba was used to seeing her upperclasswoman looking so poised and composed that it was unnerving to see her so distressed.

“There is no need to apologize, Yamada-san. It’s not your fault.” Saiko put a hand on Yamada’s shoulder before she turned back to the rest of the Council. “Don’t worry. We are not going to sacrifice Yamada to our attacker. She is just a part of our counterstrike.” Yamada’s eyes widened.

“I’m bait?” She asked.

“That’s… one way to put it, unfortunately,” Saiko slowly said. “But, look, we’ve spent the day gathering weapons. You will be protected.

“Is… it going to be that easy?”

Before Saiko could answer, the rest of the Council straightened up and said, “Yes, ma’am!” Saiko let a smile slip on her face. She could always count on the rest of her members. No matter how tough the situation, they were always up for the challenge.

.

.

_FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7_

_12:03_

.

Yamada appreciated Saiko’s efforts, but the girl was becoming a bit suffocating. The Student Council president hadn’t left her side the moment she walked through the school gates that morning. She had even taken the seat next to her in class for the day.

“Yamada-san.”

“O-Oh!” Yamada didn’t mean to sound so startled. She cleared her throat. “Yes, what is it?”

“Excuse me, but I feel like I must confess something to you.” Yamada hoped that Saiko wasn’t going to say anything too bad that would paint an awkward atmosphere over their lunch together. (They were definitely sharing lunch together – no escaping from the prez today.)

“What is it, Saiko?”

“At the beginning of this trimester, I had felt a certain and sudden protective urge over you. I had gone to Shiba Shimako about it, and she had given me some information that I had just dismissed as ‘occultist nonsense’ and forgot about it. But I didn’t know that my urge would actually come into fruition, especially in this manner.”

“Oh, um… That’s interesting.” Yamada let out a laugh. “You always seem to have a sort of sixth sense of this kind of stuff, I think. Like, you always seem to be there whenever someone needs help, I feel like.”

“Really?”

“Yeah! You haven’t noticed that?” Saiko frowned.

“No, I actually haven’t. Sometimes I just sort of feel as if someone needs help and I’m usually right. I never thought too much about it. I thought everyone felt that way.”

Yamada stopped just by the stairs to the rooftop and held her hands behind her back. Saiko stopped with her. “I believe that we all have something special about us, you know? And the special thing about you is that you’re always there to help someone, even before they even know that they need help. And I think that’s pretty great because that’s what makes you Saiko Megami, the Student Council president.” Saiko had that dazzled look in her eye that everyone seemed to have when Yamada said something nice. It seemed that her “kindness” managed to charm even the socially strongest student in the school. “Ah, Saiko, do you mind if I use the bathroom really quick?” Saiko nodded. When she took a step toward the bathroom alongside Yamada, Yamada willed up the corners of her mouth to smile again. “Sorry, do you mind if I go _alone_ , please?”

“Excuse me.” Saiko nodded. “I’ll stand outside of the lavatory and wait for you. Yell if you need assistance.”

“Thank you.”

Yamada let out the breath that she had been holding all morning once she entered the bathroom. She turned on the cold water and sprinkled some on her face, but she didn’t feel refreshed in the slightest. She frowned at her reflection. She hadn’t been able to comb her hair or put on any makeup in the morning, she was just so exhausted.

Yamada straightened up once she heard a flush and the stall behind her close. Here came the reason why she went to the bathroom in the first place. _Showtime_. “Aishi,” Yamada called out. She didn’t have to (didn’t _want to_ ) look at the other girl to know that she had stood at a standstill. “Stop whatever stunt you’re pulling.”

“I’m not pulling any stunts,” was the immediate reply. Yamada wasn’t buying it.

“If you’re…” Deep breaths, deep breaths. “If you’re pulling the same stunt like you had done in elementary school with Kuwata, then I will never forgive you.” Ayane grew still again.

“It’s not happening again. I would never forsake your forgiveness for something so selfish.” Yamada jumped back when Ayane fell on her knees suddenly. “Please accept my apology for what happened to Kuwata Yukari.” All Yamada could do was sigh. She raised an eyebrow as she look down at the bowing girl. She was wearing a surgical mask, which was pretty unlike her. Was she sick? Ah, she had joined the Health Committee when she started going to high school, so maybe it was something that they had made her wear. Whatever. Yamada didn’t want to waste any more time worrying about Ayane.

“I forgive you.” Now that Yamada had some confirmation, she could go back to ignoring Ayane and return to Saiko’s side. When she had seen Ayane go into the bathroom, she had a sliver of an opportunity to either solidify or ease her nerves. Ayane had done despicable things in the past, but she had never lied to Yamada before. Her honesty had been as brutal as her knife…

“Yamada-san, are you okay?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m okay.”

“Alright. Mind if we make a quick stop to the Cooking Club? I would like to ask them to prepare refreshments for the meeting tonight.”

“No problem, Saiko.”

“Ayane, you’re going to hurt your hand. Stop.” Ayane let go of the edge of the sink. She had mustered up all of her courage to feign innocence and stand in Yamada’s presence for so long. It was an emotional whiplash to do that and then have to listen to her beloved speak to Saiko Megami like it was nothing. She heard Gogo’s crutches tap against the bathroom tile as she made her way to the sink that Yamada had just been standing by. “Calm down,” she murmured from beneath her surgical mask. Hers was pink with teddy bears printed across the front. Ayane had refused to wear such a childish design and had retrieved a simple white one from the Health Committee’s supplies.

“I can’t… calm down,” Ayane admitted.

“Because you’re not in control?” Ayane said nothing to that. “You’ll take action tonight. Just be patient.” There was a slight bite to the girl’s words. There actually had been since the week began, but Ayane had chosen to ignore it. Perhaps she couldn’t ignore it any longer. “Mind if I take a quick stop to your house tonight?” Ayane nodded. “Thanks.” Gogo was giving her a weird look. Ayane only raised an eyebrow. “Did you can wash your hands yet?”

“…No.” Ayane went to turn on the faucet.

❋

Gogo asked for permission before she began to rummage through Ayane’s closet. “I can feel your eyes on me,” the younger girl said. She was leaning on one side of her crutches and using her other hand to go through Ayane’s clothes. Ayane unhelpfully sat on her bed and watched.

“Something has been off about you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. You’re using crutches instead of your wheelchair, your outfits are more childish, your hair is styled differently, and you speak in a less formal manner.”

“Someone’s talkative tonight.” Gogo leaned against the other side of her crutches. Her sudden choice to use crutches instead of a wheelchair made traveling much slower. Ayane didn’t understand the decision at all. “Don’t think too much about it. I’m fine.” She certainly didn’t sound fine. Ayane had spent enough time with the girl to analyze her and actually pay some attention to her, so if she had managed to realize that something was different, then _something was different_. Now was the opportunity to ask a few questions that had managed to swirl in her mind.

“How did you manage to make Yui Rio work for you? Does she have a debt to you or something?”

“This story is called _Ayane_ , not _Rio_ —don’t worry about her.” Ayane actually had to blink at that.

“You promised that you would be upfront with me, that you would ‘lay everything out on the table’ for me.” An outfit was tossed by Ayane’s side on the bed. It was her pseudo nursing uniform that she wore for Health Committee duties.

“Here.” So Gogo was ignoring her. How mature. Gogo was holding out a pocket sized notebook. Ayane didn’t break eye contact as she took it from her.

“Thanks.” Ayane tried to match her companion’s newfound chilled tone, but found that she just couldn’t for some reason.

.

.

_FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7_

_22:23_

.

 _Ugh, my head…_ Shiba’s head was pounding. She never had such a bad headache before. The last thing she remembered was Saiko and Yamada coming in for the meeting, handing out tea that the Cooking Club had prepared and then… darkness.

Shiba tried to move. She couldn’t. Her hands were tied behind her back. She couldn’t see either. She was blindfolded just like everyone’s captured families in the pictures.

“Is everybody up?” If Shiba wasn’t scared before, she was now. She thanked everything that she wasn’t gagged.

“Sayaka-chan!” Tears were already falling down Shiba’s cheeks, wetting her blindfold. “Are you hurt?”

“Hi, Mako-oneechan!” Sayaka sounded… _fine_. She sounded unhurt, so that was good. Was Shiba in wherever the captives were being held? Had the perpetrator drugged the tea and used the opportunity to take her away? _No, no, no, no, no, no—_ “Sayaka said: is everybody up? Answer, please!” Shiba heard groans all around her. Was it the family members? The rest of the Council? What the fuck was going on…? Shiba could feel her eyes starting to close. “Mako-oneechan, wake up!” Sayaka was giggling. What in the actual hell… “You’re all bad students and you’re all being punished for falling asleep in class! So if anyone falls asleep again, that person’s family member that’s been kidnapped will get an even worser punishment!”

Silence. And then, “Lies!” Shiba gasped. It was another Council member. “I’m sorry everyone, but I’ve been lying too! The person that was captured wasn’t actually my mother!” _What?_ Shiba tried to turn toward the source of the voice. It sounded like it was coming from her right, near where Sayaka’s voice was coming from. “Forgive me, Shiba-san!” _…What?_

“Me too, actually!” Another voice, another Council member. It was coming close from the left. “That wasn’t actually my brother. Forgive me, Shiba-senpai!” More and more apologies fled in.

Shiba’s mind processed just long enough to gather that everyone had been faking that their family members were captured and that they had received an additional message to play along or else their real family member would actually be killed, and everyone was completely unaware that they had all received such a message. They had all also received a message that Shiba Sayaka was the only true captive too.

Shiba… was speechless.

“Sayaka says stand up!” Shiba gathered enough blind strength to get to her feet. It was difficult with her ankles tied together, but her moves were automatic. She didn’t feel like she was in her own body anymore. She had suffered too much shock for one moment. “We’re going to play Sayaka’s favorite game: _kagome, kagome_!” More giggling.

“Sayaka,” Shiba said. Her voice was distant, blank. “Are you okay?” She asked again.

“Mako-oneechan, Sayaka is fine!!” Sayaka was playfully whining. That was a good sign at least. “Let’s just play Sayaka’s favorite game! You can play as the _oni_ first!” Someone pushed Shiba forward. She tumbled down on the ground now. Whose hands were untied? “Everybody sing!” At first, hesitance. “Sayaka says sing or else your families are getting hurt!” And then, everyone sang.

_“Kagome, kagome, the bird in the basket, when, oh, when will it come out? In the night of dawn, the crane and turtle slipped. Who is behind you now?”_

Shiba quickly tried to remember the game. She hadn’t played it since she was in elementary school. One person, the _oni_ , or demon, sat in the middle with their eyes closed while everyone else got in a circle around them and sang a rhyme. Once the song was over, everyone stood still and the “demon” had to guess who was standing behind them. Through the drugged exhaustion, Shiba tried to listen as best as she could. Once the song came to an end, she whispered, “I-Ito S-S-Sara.” Her friend’s tiny and equally trembling voice was easy to pick out.

“You guessed right! New _oni_! Sayaka wants the pretty girl with the ribbons in her hair to go next!” Shiba was picked up and moved back again. She tried to fight back as best as she could, but she was hit in the back. Not by a hand, but by something much harder. She was sure that there would be a bruise on her back when she got out of this – _if_ she got out of this. “Uh oh! Someone was sleeping! Sayaka will be nice. The bad students get punished first before their families do.”

 _Screaming_.

Over and over again, there was screaming in Shiba’s ears. The perpetrator must have put devices in everyone’s ears while they were out. The screaming was so loud and so overbearing that Shiba nearly screamed herself, but she held her tongue. She could hear the rest of the Council yell in terror though. _But are they all really wearing earpieces?_ Her mind bitterly thought. _Or are they pretending now too?_

“Sing!” Sayaka commanded. “Sing again!” Shiba felt herself being to cry again. What type of weird, sick torture was this?

_“Kagome, kagome, the bird in the basket, when, oh, when will it come out? In the night of dawn, the crane and turtle slipped. Who is behind you now?”_

Despite her bitter thoughts, Shiba couldn’t help but feel bad for whoever was in the middle. If she could barely hear her own voice singing the stupid rhyme with the ear-bleeding level noise being played in her ears, then she was certain that the “demon” wouldn’t be able to hear who was behind them at all.

The noise stopped. “You guessed wrong,” Sayaka said. The screams started again, but they were in front of Sayaka now, toward the center of the circle everyone had formed, not in her ears.

“S-S-Stop!” Shiba screamed. Wet, fleshy noises and more screaming – she couldn’t take it. She was being grabbed again. “N-No! No, please!” She was struck in the back again, even harder. Whoever it was grabbed her by the hair and dragged her forward. Shiba convulsed into more useless sputtering. Was she going to be killed next? _Please, no. Please no. Pleas—_

.

.

_FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7_

_22:40_

.

Yamada. Cooking Club. Tea. Student Council meeting. Darkness… _The tea_.

Saiko forced herself out of her daze as she watched her fellow Student Council members be forced to do some sort of sick game. She nearly snapped her phone in half trying to turn it off. The perpetrator had the nerve to _drug_ her fellow students and send her a video of them tied up, scared, and helpless?

Now was more of a time than any to contact the authorities. Saiko knew when to admit defeat. She tried to call the police, but the call immediately dropped. She tried again. Dropped again. Soon she tried to call the numbers in her contacts and then _any_ number – they all dropped. _Shit_. If the perpetrator had taken the time to make Saikou Corp a zone that automatically sent a threatening message to her phone, then they could have taken the time to make the school a zone where they could block calls and messages.

“Saiko? Where are you?” It sounded like Yamada. Without a second thought, Saiko raced out toward her. Saiko had been stuffed inside of a supply closet while the rest of the Council had been tied up in their meeting room. “Saiko!” Yamada called out again. She didn’t sound too far away. Saiko was right. Her fellow classmate was only at the end of the hallway, near the meeting room actually. Whoever was orchestrating such a stunt at their school was smart. Saiko was only giving them that much credit.

“Yamada-san, are you okay?” Saiko checked over the girl as fast as she could.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. What about you?” Yamada looked tired, but Saiko figured that she probably looked tired too.

“I’m fine.”

“I found Gogo-chan passed out just down the hall.” Yamada gestured toward the sickly girl who was standing just behind her.

“Ah, Saigo-chan, are you okay?” When Saiko had been making rounds around the school the other day, she took note of the young girl’s sudden switch to crutches and the surgical mask she wore. Her cheeriness didn’t seem diminished though, as she just said that she had caught a lingering cold from over the weekend. “I hope that your health wasn’t worsened.” Gogo shook her head. “That’s good.” Yamada and Gogo seemed fine.

“Saiko, we have to get out of here.” Yamada grabbed her arm, but Saiko was unmoving. “What are you doing? Come on!”

“No. The Council is in trouble and I can’t contact the authorities. I have to help them myself. You two find a way to escape and get help for me.” Yamada bit her lip. She glanced down at Gogo. Gogo only looked back at her.

“I-I’ll come with you,” Yamada finally said. Gogo nodded firmly to that. Yamada mustered up an uneasy smile. “We’ll _both_ come with you.”

“We’ve stood around for long enough. The meeting room is this way.”

.

.

_FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7_

_22:46_

.

Shiba’s hand restraints were removed. Her mind stopped for a good few seconds before she hurried to rip off her blindfold and the ties on her feet. She moved to the closest person to her, one of the boys of the Council, and removed his ties too. “G-Get everyone else!” In no time, everyone was free of their ties.

Shiba, with Ito cowering close behind her, looked around the room. They were still in the meeting room and the monitor ahead of them showed a still of her sister from a video it looked like. Her sister wasn’t tied up or anything like she had been in the pictures. Sayaka looked happy and… and like she was _in her room_. Shiba’s eyes looked down at the middle of where everyone had been standing. No gore or anything from what she had heard. Nothing.

“GET HER.”

Everyone was rushing toward the front of the room, stopping at the table that had been shoved to the side to grab one of the weapons that they had collected. Shiba was swept up in the madness and Ito – timid, dainty Ito Sara – had been the one to shove a pair of sharp sewing scissors into her hands. “I-I-It was Aishi-senpai all along…?” Shiba heard Ito whisper. It was hard to hear anything. Everyone was gathered around someone, who was apparently Aishi Ayane, and kicking, stabbing, screaming bloody murder – doing everything that Saiko had asked them not to do.

But Shiba understood. This girl had pulled some trick to terrify them all. And for what? So that they would bring Yamada Hanako to her? Did she have some type of sick “crush” for Yamada? Were they seriously having a repeat of the 1998 Akademi High School Incident all over again? Shiba understood. This bitch’s psycho brother and sister had killed her cousins all for some twisted “love.”

Shiba understood.

So when she clutched the scissors in her hand so tightly that she could feel her nails dig into her skin and her knuckles strain, and the rest of the Council cleared a path for her, she didn’t hesitate to dig the blades into the sick bastard’s back. Ayane was wearing her Health Committee uniform and still had on that stupid surgical mask that she had been wearing all week long. The fucking coward wouldn’t show her face in a time like this? The mask was soaked in as much blood as the rest of her clothes now. Shiba ripped it off.

“G-G-G—” _Gogo-chan_. But before Shiba could finish her sentence the Council was sweeping her away again, racing toward the suddenly unlocked exit.

.

.

_FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7_

_22:42_

.

Saiko searched her pockets for the stupid meeting room key. Now wasn’t the time for her to be stumbling with her pockets. “Where is it, where is it?” She muttered. Did the perpetrator take it? “I’m sorry Yamada-san, Saigo-chan, I can’t seem to find my—”

“Key?” _Huh? Who was that?_ Saiko spun around on her feet. Gogo was standing up completely straight and dangling the meeting room key in her hand. But… _that voice_. That wasn’t Gogo’s voice, no, it was much too deep.

“Who are you?” Who would masquerade themselves as Hashimoto Saigo?

“No one important.” “Gogo” picked up her crutches and slammed them into Saiko’s back. The breath was knocked out of Saiko’s lungs. She couldn’t believe that she had allowed herself to get caught off guard like that. When she tried to get back to her feet, she was hit again. Again and again and again in the same spot until she couldn’t breathe at all anymore.

Only two thoughts flowed through Saiko’s mind: _The Council. Yamada._ She was such a failure. She unable to protect her peers. And now she was being dragged away by the possible very perpetrator of it all. _Failure. Failure. Failure. Failure._

Saiko was shoved back into the closet that she had woken up in. Her body had already been weakened when she passed out and being hit so much didn’t help, but she tried to best to struggle, only to have the butt of the crutches jabbed into her stomach, knocking out the miniscule amount of strength that she had left.

“Gogo” set down the crutches and ripped off her surgical mask. “A-Aishi…?” Ayane was tying her hands and feet and standing her up against the wall. Saiko couldn’t move at all. “Aishi,” she said again. It was hard to speak. It took everything in Saiko do it. “W-Where’s Yama—”

“Behind you.” Ayane took something from her dress pocket. Saiko managed to make out that it was a small notebook. _House of Blue Leaves, 1997: A Study of Death-Point Striking by Budo Masuta and Keiji Kupa_ was written across the front. Saiko tried to focus her eyes to the side, like Ayane had said, and could barely see Yamada, limp and lifeless, in her peripheral vision, leaning against the far corner of the wall. When she turned back to Ayane, the girl was glancing at the notebook and taking out a tin box filled with needles.

“Aishi, please.” Saiko wanted nothing more than to double over and cough, but she tried her best to hold her ground. “Don’t… Don’t do this.” Ayane’s eyes glanced up from the notebook. She took a step closer to Saiko. Saiko pressed herself flat against the wall. She had never felt so disgustingly helpless before in her entire life.

“I know you like acupuncture. It’s a pseudoscience—unjustifiable,” Ayane muttered over the book. She selected one of the needles from the box and held it before Saiko’s eyes. “Just like the art of _dim mak_. But I would like to experiment with you anyway.” Ayane was smiling. “Let’s start from the top. Temples.”

Saiko tried to turn her head away. “Aishi, sto—!” Acupuncture, when done correctly, was painless and brought on a relaxing, tingling sensation – _de qi_ – but the needles used in the practice were much, much smaller (especially ones for the face) and Ayane was definitely no professional. Saiko knew that was the point though. Ayane took the long, sharp sewing needle she had and pressed it directly into the small flat area between Saiko’s ear and eye. Saiko didn’t know she had any air left in her to scream. “A-Ais—!” Another needle in the opposite temple. Saiko could feel it digging into her skin, just stopping at the bone.

“Does it feel good yet?” Ayane asked. “Maybe I should…?” Ayane wiggled the needles around, making sure they dug further into Saiko’s skin. Saiko bit down on her lip, but she couldn’t stop the yells from escaping her lips. She could feel blood pooling from her forehead and trailing down over her eyes and down her cheeks and chin. She tried to blink the blood away, but it only stuck to her eyelashes.

“Aishi.” Saiko tried to put as much bite in her voice as she could despite the pain. “Stop this.” Ayane only looked at the notebook again and pulled out more needles.

“ _Dokko_ ,” she said. Needles were stuck just below Saiko’s ears, where her jaw and skull meant. Ayane poked and prodded the needle until it butted against her jawbone. “Not feeling good yet? _Hichu_.” A needle was inserted just where Saiko’s neck and chest met, but it didn’t sheath fully into the skin. Ayane could just dig the needle in far enough to take a good debilitating jab at the trachea, but she wasn’t. She wasn’t giving her the mercy. And for what? “Nothing again? Let’s try this one. _Kote_.” Inside of the elbow, right where the skin creased at the bend of the arm.

“A-Aishi. Listen to m—”

“ _Uchi kuro bushi_.” Meeting point of the foot and ankle, below the bony protrusion on the inside of the ankle, right into the cavity of the joint. It hurt so much that Saiko had to buck her head back toward the wall, which made the needle that had been inserted by her ear dig in deeper. _Breathe in. Stay still. You’ll get through this_ , Saiko reminded herself.

“Aishi. Listen,” she gasped out. Ayane picked up one of her hands. “W-What have I done…?” _What have I done to you that deserves this kind of torture?_

“Webbing of the fingers,” was all that Ayane said. Saiko felt like her lungs were going to burst from holding her breath, trying not to scream. Ayane wanted a reaction. She wasn’t going to get the satisfaction. Saiko managed to hold out for four insertions. Ayane stopped once she reached the space between Saiko’s index finger and thumb. “Tell me how this feels.” She quickly stabbed the area before pulling the needle out and jamming it into the same spot, over and over again. Saiko lost this battle also. She couldn’t help but scream. Ayane smiled again.

“A-Ai—”

“Stop talking. I’m tired of your voice.” Saiko tried to blink away the blood that had gathered in her eyelashes again. _Breathe, breathe, breathe. You’re fine. You’re going to get out of this. Breathe, breathe, breathe._ Ayane pulled out two small vials from the tin box alongside more needles. “Your recommendation last year to the headmaster to secure student documents should have been taken into consideration. With just a little digging into the nurse’s records, I was able to find that Saiko Megami, the very Student Council president and heiress to Saikou Corp, has a severe allergy to spider venom.” Ayane dipped the needles into the liquid inside the vials. “This should make you feel really good, Saiko.”

 _Breathe, breathe, brea—I can’t._ Right in the chest, right through the heart. Saiko’s world was already spinning before, and it was only going faster now. Everything became out of order. Everything scattered. Was Ayane smiling? Maybe. Was the rest of the Student Council dead? Maybe. Was Hashimoto Saigo dead? Maybe. Was Yamada Hanako dead? Maybe. Was Saiko Mukuro, her father, dead? Maybe. Uncertainties everywhere.

Was Saiko Megami dead? Yes.

That was certain.

❋

Ayane didn’t like to speak first. She stood outside of the Student Council meeting room with Senpai safely stored away in the trunk that Gogo had laid out for her in another supply closet. Ayane waited and waited for something. The door wasn’t opening and she didn’t hear any voice in her earpiece. The key that Ayane had snatched from Saiko while she was unconscious was useless. Gogo had made locks for the meeting room doors – actually, _all_ the doors in the school – that only she could open. And Ayane was stuck waiting for the door to open, but she was getting nothing.

Ayane thought over Gogo’s plan again. They were to switch places so that Ayane could capture Saiko Megami and Senpai while Gogo watched over the rest of the Council. When the Council came to their senses, the video that they took of Shiba Sayaka would play to distract them and then once enough time had elapsed, Gogo was to let the Council members go, show herself to give them the illusion that “Aishi Ayane” was after them, and then hide. What could have gone wrong in that space of time?

Ayane let go of the trunk’s handle and used the entire force of her body against the door. It wouldn’t budge. She took in another deep breath and tried again. They were racing against the clock. The Council would reach the authorities at any time. Yamada was on a fast acting, timed sedative and could wake up at any time. Now was _not the time_ for Gogo to go quiet. It wasn’t like Ayane could call her if she wanted either. Gogo had proved to be successful in making the school a zone where she could jam any calls and messages she wanted. If something had happened to Gogo, then no one would be there to approve Ayane’s call to go through.

Ayane stretched her arms out. One more time. _Click_. “…Stop.” Ayane stopped.

“What are you doing? Get out here.”

“I…” She sounded like she was struggling to breathe. Just what exactly had happened in there? “Forgive me… for this.” She sounded like her old self again. But now was not the time.

“Unlock the door.”

“…I did it.”

“Did what?” Talking to her was good. It showed that she was still inside of the room. She just couldn’t get out for some reason. Ayane dragged the trunk as fast as she could to the school entrance.

“Everything… I got everything.”

“What’s ‘everything?’” Ayane climbed the top of the stairs as quickly as she could. Damn the meeting room for not being on the first floor. She tightly grabbed onto the railing on the rooftop and climbed over it.

“Everything… you need to know.” _How vague_. Ayane carefully dropped down from the rooftop and moved downward. One slip and it was all over. She made her steps careful but quick. Gogo didn’t sound like she was in good shape.

“What do I need to know?” One careful drop down. She was getting closer to the meeting room’s window.

“Please… Please Ayane, stop, please…” Ayane was just in front of the window now. It was too dark to see inside and something was blocking the view anyway.

“What are you talking about?” Ayane carefully balanced herself so she could hold onto the window with one hand and use her other hand to try and break through.

“Take Yamada-senpai… and… and let me die. Please… please, just let me die.”

“Die? You’re hurt?” That was all the more reason to hurry. Ayane banged her fist against the window. Damn any glass and cuts, she had to get in there.

“If… If you need any more help, ask Yui Rio. I’m… I’m very sorry.”

“Shut up, Gogo. I’ll be in there in a second.”

“Ah, you… you said my name.” A laugh. It was breathless. Coughing. “Thank you, Ayane. Thank you for everything.”

.

.

_SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8_

_2:54_

.

Yamada’s head was throbbing. She brought her hand up to her temples to try and smooth it out. She felt like she was underwater. What day was it? Friday…? Was she going to have to ask for some time off? The kids she aided at the end of the school day would be disappointed, but she couldn’t have them get sick because of her.

She managed to have one hell of a nightmare last night. Yamada’s bones ached and screamed when she sat up. She rested her hand against her forehead. It took almost all of her energy just to stretch and sit up. She might not be able to even go to school for the day. How annoying. Missing school days during her last year was not her favorite thing to do, but she could hardly move. She wouldn’t be able to get through the day.

Yamada took a few well needed minutes just to open her eyes and get out of bed. The dizziness in her head was going away somewhat, but she didn’t trust herself to move. Her sudden sickness didn’t matter though. She had to check on—

There was a tapping at the window. Strange. It was too early for anyone to be outside, right? She blindly shuffled her way toward her window. She gasped. “A-Aishi? What—?” Yamada now saw. This wasn’t her window. This wasn’t her room. Ayane was standing outside of the window, securing a lock it looked like. She picked her head up, smiled, waved, and then went back to fiddling with the lock. Yamada couldn’t move.

She didn’t need to be physically restrained and paralyzed with any ropes and chains to know that she was trapped.


	5. waters.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _waters (wa•ters) [n.] — spill._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _in this chapter:_  
>  \- scene with dubious consent and references.  
> \- non-consensual drug usage.  
> \- references to child abuse.

Her love had awakened.

“Aishi, y-y-you sick bastard!”

And her love seemed… upset. But what for?

At first, Yamada’s words weren’t coming through to Ayane. When she had first seen that Yamada was awake, she had quickly finished securing the final window and raced inside. She then had quickly sat down on _their_ bed in _their_ bedroom so that she could speak to Yamada and… Yamada wasn’t happy…?

“A-Aishi, a-ar—you’re ignoring me, right now!” Yamada clutched the side of her head and winced. The effects of the sedative must have not completely worn off yet.

“Yamada, are yo—?”

“N-No! Shut up!” _But…_ Yamada was getting red in the face. “H-How could…?” _…I didn’t…_ “Aishi, you lied to me!” _do anything wrong…_

“I… have never lied to you.”

“You’re lying to me again!” Yamada shakily moved toward the windowsill and gripped it to steady herself. “I-In the bathroom, on Friday, you told me that you weren’t pulling the same stunt like you did in elementary school to Kuwata! You lied to me!”

“I—”

“You lied, you lied, you lied!” Yamada collapsed to her knees. Ayane jumped to her feet and tried to help her, but she was pushed away – or, Yamada tried to push her away, but her body was still too weak. She ended up completely on the floor, hands by Ayane’s feet, and trembling. “I… I…”

“Senpai…”

“I will never…” Yamada picked her head up again and looked Ayane in the eye. “I will never forgive you for this!”

“You’re just… still sick.” Ayane nodded to herself as she reached into her skirt pocket. “You’ll get better soon.” And Ayane could smile at that thought as she administered another dosage into Yamada. The girl was still twitching and babbling nonsense though.

“S-Shidesu… that was all you… and Saiko… Is she alive?”

“No.”

“H-H-How am I supposed to know that you’re telling the tru—” Ayane took out her phone from her back pocket and held it in front of Yamada’s face. The phone was disabled and untraceable now, and in hindsight, the taking of photographs was possibly a part of Gogo’s plan to stall for time so that the Student Council could thoroughly attack her. Yamada’s eyes widened and tears began to pool in them. “S-Sai—” Instantaneously, she began to vomit. Ah. Perhaps an image of a person reduced to nothing but a pincushion would be too much for the faint of heart (especially someone as beautifully lighthearted as Yamada Hanako). Through ragged heaving, Yamada asked, “A-And Kizana… Kizana too?” Ayane only nodded. She figured it wouldn’t be wise to give any more photographic proof. “Oh, God… Aishi…”

“They’re gone now. They don’t matter anymore.” When Ayane reached out to finally, _finally_ touch Yamda – just the most feathery of touches on the top of the head – the girl didn’t flinch away. Ayane felt like she had singed her fingertips from just the barest of touches toward Yamada. “It’s just me and you now. We’re going to be so happy together, Yamada-senpai.”

Yamada didn’t say anything. Ayane figured that the realization was just too much for her poor body. She helped her beloved clean herself up and gave her another small dosage of medicine to help her sleep. Perhaps a little more sleep would help her see things clearly.

❋

Her love woke up again when she was tinkering with the television. “Aishi,” she called out. Her voice was softer than usual. Ayane immediately looked back. It looked like the after effects of paralysis from the dosage were still in effect. Gogo had convinced Ayane that ropes and chains were not as beneficial and effective as the mysterious, golden concoction in the syringes she had bought. If Ayane was recalling correctly, Yamada should be able to move around in about thirty minutes or so with the dosage she was given.

“Yamada-senpai, how are you feeling?” Ayane brushed her fingers over the fingertips of her right hand, the hand that she had used to just barely touch Yamada’s hair the other day. They still felt warm.

“I… can’t move. But,” Yamada closed her eyes, “I shouldn’t be surprised by that. Where are we? Because… I don’t recognize this as your house.”

“Ah, you bothered to remember what my house looked like?” _Senpai’s mind is filled with so many big, important things, the fact that something as insignificant as the Aishi household is in her wonderful mind was truly astonishing and magnificent_.

“I, u—of course.” Yamada opened her eyes again. They were focused off toward the side of the room.

“We’re in a bungalow in Uto that was secured for us so we could live happily ever after without any interruptions.” Gogo had made sure of it.

“Uto is hours away from Buraza Town…” Yamada slowly blinked before she closed her eyes again. “I don—” There was a knock at the window. Yamada’s eyes shot back open again and widened. She tried to turn to the window, but couldn’t. There could only be one person there anyway. The only people who knew the location of the bungalow were Gogo, Ayane, and Gogo’s girl Friday, Yui Rio.

Yui was wearing a pair of sunglasses with opaque lenses and a jacket fit for the cool, dewy weather. Ayane gave a nod toward her underclasswoman (or, _former_ underclasswoman – there would no longer be anything such as “school” in the future that Ayane was going to build with Yamada) and picked up the remote. Thankfully, the television finally turned on. She changed to a random channel before going toward the front door. There was a larger electronic lock on the front door (the _only_ door also) that required a different code from the locks on the windows. Ayane swiftly entered the digits – 020700 (Gogo’s birthday, easy to remember) – and opened the door. Yui’s arms were crossed and a deep scowl marked her face.

“Here.” She jammed what she was holding into Ayane’s chest. Ayane remained unfazed though, and took the object. It was one of those palm-sized, paperback dot notebooks with a pink cover. There was a cold compress (the same as the ones that Gogo kept in her clubroom) taped to the front alongside cutesy stickers of kitty cats and bunny rabbits. The notebook looked like it had notes on every single page and was weary on the sides.

“What is this?”

“It’s her fucking research, idiot,” Yui snapped. “I hope you’re happy.”

“You… hope I’m happy?”

“Yeah!” Yui jabbed her finger into Ayane’s shoulder. Someone was feeling quite passionate tonight. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your sorry life stuck in this bungalow in the middle of nowhere at the expanse for a little girl’s pain!” Yui then crossed her arms again. “I’m only doing this because Gogo-chan asked me to: I’ll be giving you supplies on a bimonthly basis and if you need any assistance from me on something, my number’s on the fridge. You have to do a task of my choice though for payback.”

“Got it.” Ayane made sure the door was locked behind her before she returned to her beloved.

❋

Her beloved was finally willing to eat. Ayane found a smile spreading across her face as she placed the spoon in Yamada’s mouth. It was cream stew – something both light and with consistency. Ayane unfortunately had to immobilize Yamada’s arms and legs, but at least she was still cooperating with eating, so that was a positive. “What day is it?” Yamada asked between spoonfuls. Her voice was as quiet as it was yesterday, but Ayane figured that her beloved would be warming up soon.

“Monday. We have been together since Friday.” Yamada shook her head to the next spoonful. “Oh, do you not like it? I’m sorry. Forgive me for serving you something that wasn’t up to your ta—”

“No, it was fine,” Yamada hurriedly said. “It’s just… been two days, Aishi. My parents are going to miss me a-and, um, and your parents are too. This isn’t a good idea… you know?”

“Yamada-senpai, I understand why you’re saying that right now, and I forgive you for it.” Yamada looked away. “But you know that my parents don’t care.”

“D-Don’t care…?” Ayane nodded.

“They had asked about the charred spot in the basement and the boxes with Kizana’s body parts, and when I told them the truth, they didn’t do anything. In fact, my mother supported us running away together and my father couldn’t do anything about to stop her.”

“I-I ca—I… I should’ve known.” Yamada smiled, but it wasn’t quite the beaming grin. Ayane was sure that she would get a lovely smile instead of the strained variety from her beloved soon. “T-The twins, um, your parents must have turned a blind eye to them.” Ayane nodded.

“And also, I know that your parents went to work in Yatsuhiro and the Yamada household is empty.”

“Y-Yeah, that means they’ll be calling me soon to chec—!”

“They never call you. I have been watching you for months.” Yamada was silent after that. Ayane took it as an opportunity to read Gogo’s notebook. The sound of Yamada’s soft breaths and the hum of the television took over the room.

> _06 / 02 / 14_
> 
> _Screenshots of a conversation and photographs dating the twenty-first of January, 1998 have been found._

Attached to the page were two pictures and another screenshot of a conversation, just as the writing said. The first picture showed two girls inside of an incinerator. It had to be Akedemi High School’s incinerator, because the current one at Akademi Academy’s was much longer. Ah, Ayane recognized that hairstyle and color. It was Kizana’s “mistress,” Kokona Haruka and the second girl that had been murdered alongside her. It was taken from a certain angle, but Ayane could still make out Kokona’s body type. Kizana had gotten the girl down pretty well, Ayane could admit.

> _The screenshot notes from “Info-6” (Kuzuryu Sachiko) for “Info-7” (Kuzuryu Sayoko) and “Info-8” (Budo Masuta) to remove all traces of Kokona Haruka and Yuna Hina from the incinerator. It can be assumed that Aishi Yande and Aishi Ayano’s location at that current point in time is directly above them on the roof, cleaning up evidence, from the implications of the screenshot from “Info-6” (Kuzuryu Sachiko)._

Ayane found her eyebrow rising as she turned the page. Gogo was always so detached when it came to addressing her mother, the Lost Info-chan. She was always correcting herself during the few times she spoke of her…

 _“My mother, um… Sorry._ Info-chan _really keeps everything under lock and key, but I’m getting it…”_

_“You see, I managed to recover the video and picture from one of mo—I mean, Info-chan’s computers…”_

Ayane turned to the next page.

> _05 / 02 / 14_

Hm? Gogo had written the entries backwards? How odd. There were two photographs attached: one showing an assumedly dead girl in a hospital room and another of Ayano sticking her fingers inside of a girl’s eye socket in the basement.

> _Screenshot of a conversation dating the seventh of February, 1998 says that “Info-6” (Kuzuryu Sachiko) has noticed that Oka Ruto is still alive [camera three of the 1998 Aishi household feed] and that Churu Supana is also still alive [(assumedly) camera one of the 1998 Ruto household feed]. Conversations confirm the section from Aishi Yande’s confession that he had successfully gotten away with killing Churu Supana after she had been revived in Buraza Town General and that Aishi Ayano had killed a barely alive Oka Ruto._

Ayane turned to the next page.

> _04 / 02 / 14_
> 
> _Screenshot dating the seventh of October, 1998 [78 days before “Info-6” (Kuzuryu Sachiko)’s first interaction with Aishi Yande and Aishi Ayano] from “Info-8” (Budo Masuta) detailing his want for his cousin, Keiji “Copper” Kupa, to die so he can be the sole heir of the House of Blue Leaves [various confirmations from the Keiji clan and birth certificates that Budo Masuta and Keiji Kupa have the same birthdate and time] and asking “Info-6” (Kuzuryu Sachiko) and “Info-7” (Kuzuryu Sayoko) if there is a way to come up with a scheme to kill her alongside the rest of the 90’s edition of the Ivory Tiger gang. “Info-6” (Kuzuryu Sachiko) suggests that they could manipulate a select student from Akademi High School to not only get rid of Keiji Kupa, but other rivals of theirs. This seems to be the very first instance of the Info’s plan for the 1998 Akademi High School Incident._

Next page. Ayane blinked. There were a few blood droplets on the page. Ayane traced her fingers over them. They were on the header, by the date.

> _02 / 02 / 14_
> 
> _~~Finally, finally, fin~~ Official list of motives for the 1998 Akademi High School Incident:_
> 
> _♡ NAJIMI OSANA — bullied “Info-6” (Kuzuryu Sachiko) throughout elementary school, including: stealing her personal possessions, destroying her personal possessions, pushing, shoving, exclusion/alienation from peers, name calling, and hair pulling. DID NOT HAVE A CRUSH ON YAMADA TARO. ♡_
> 
> _♡ SHIBA “SWEETIE” SUMIKO — would not have sexual relations with Budo Masuta [confirmed online text exchange between Shiba Sweetie and Budo Masuta having a brief romantic relationship in their second year of junior high school]; she also cut her hair and could not put it up in a ponytail, in allusion of Aishi Ayano’s hairstyle, which he was also upset by. ALSO: 1/5 OF THE GIRLS WHO ACTUALLY HAD A CRUSH ON YAMADA TARO. [confirmed from her personal account’s messages]. ♡_
> 
> _♡ HINATA KOHARU, SOMA RIKU (non-rivals, poisoned Cooking Club members) — friends of Kokona Haruka, so killed by association [confirmed that there are no other reasons for their deaths]. ♡_
> 
> _♡ KOKONA HARUKA — had a brief romantic relationship with Budo Masuta during year one of senior high school [confirmed indirectly from Budo Masuta in one message, referenced frequently by Kuzuryu Sayoko] and refused to do Aishi Ayano-alluding activities such as a single ponytail hairstyle, sweaters and skirts, and breath control play during sexual activities. Also, Kokona Haruka had participated in elementary school bullying against “Info-6” (Kuzuryu Sachiko) alongside then friend, Najimi Osana. (Although bullying stopped in junior high school once Kokona Haruka broke friendship with Najimi Osana.) ALSO: 2/5 OF THE GIRLS WHO ACTUALLY HAD A CRUSH ON YAMADA TARO [confirmed from her personal account’s messages]. ♡_
> 
> _♡ YUNA HINA (non-rival, killed Drama Club member) — solely killed because of witnessing Kokona Haruka’s murder [absolutely no mentions of Yuna Hina as a rival in any messages]. ♡_
> 
> _♡ KAIYO PURU — when Kaiyo Puru identified as male, she had a friendship with “Info-6” (Kuzuryu Sachiko) throughout the latter part of elementary school and the beginning of junior high school. Kuzuryu Sachiko’s romantic feelings toward Kaiyo Puru were not returned and she internalized Kaiyo Puru’s transition as an excuse for not returning her feelings and at first spread unrest amongst Kaiyo Puru’s Swim Club and team [messages of anonymous rumors sent to teammates and members confirmed] before deciding she needed to be eliminated. ~~So fucking cruel and stupid.~~ DID NOT HAVE A CRUSH ON YAMADA TARO. ♡_
> 
> _♡ SHIN HIGAKU, CHOJO TEKINA, DAKU ATSU, KOKUMA JUTSU, SUPANA CHURU (non-rivals, Occult Club members), SORA SOSUKE (non-rival, Drama Club member) — “Info-7” (Kuzuryu Sayoko) got permission from “Info-6” (Kuzuryu Sachiko) for Aishi Yande to murder the remainder of the Occult Club because he had not participated in many murders before [no mentions of any personal vendettas against the Occult Club members; only mentions of strong dislike toward the Occult Club for their looks and personalities]. Sora Sosuke confirmed for being killed solely for the Kokona Haruka murder plot. ♡_
> 
> _♡ OKA RUTO — 3/5 OF THE GIRLS WHO ACTUALLY HAD A CRUSH ON YAMADA TARO [ ~~surprisingly~~ no malicious messages/vendetta against her]. ♡_
> 
> _♡ AKABARA MURASA (rival), KEIJI “COPPER” KUPA, YAMAGUCHI “DANDY” DAISHIN, SHIBA SUMITO (non-rivals, 90’s Ivory Tigers gang members) — Akabara Murasa is 4/5 OF THE GIRLS WHO ACTUALLY HAD A ~~CRUSH~~ DESIRE? FOR YAMADA TARO [based upon her messages, more so wanted to sleep with Yamada Taro due to her sexual objectification of liking virginal partners]. Keiji “Copper” Kupa most likely killed for Budo Masuta’s rivalry with for the heir of the House of Blue Leaves dojo [ ~~need further confirmation, but I feel pretty solid on this theory~~ now completely confirmed as of 05 / 02 / 14]. Yamaguchi “Dandy” Daishin killed solely for connection to Akabara Murasa. “Info-7” (Kuzuryu Sayoko) had a crush on Shiba Sumito, but her confession was shot down by him [based on messages, this happened on the sixteenth of January, 1998 – one day after the murder of his sister, Shiba Sweetie]. ♡_
> 
> _♡ YAMADA IMOUTO (rival), WAKIMOTO KIMI (non-rival, Photography Club) — Yamada Imouto is 5/5 OF THE GIRLS WHO ACTUALLY HAD A CRUSH ON YAMADA TARO [feelings for her older brother are highly implied to be romantic based upon her personal journal entries that Yui Rio has obtained for me yesterday]. Yamada Imouto also was friends with “Info-7” (Kuzuryu Sayoko), but their friendship ended because Yamada Imouto falsely accused Kuzuryu Sayoko of having a crush on Yamada Taro. Wakimoto Kimi was chosen to be killed by a brainwashed Yamada Imouto because of Aishi Yande’s decision. He told “Info-8” (Budo Masuta) and “Info-7” (Kuzuryu Sayoko) to “flip a coin” [from camera three of the Aishi household feed, during Yamada Imouto’s torture] between Photography Club members Wakimoto Kimi and Shimu Tano, and Wakimoto Kimi won the toss. ♡_
> 
> _♡ AKUMU SHANERU — based upon her personal messages, she actually had a crush on Aishi Yande. Akumu Shaneru had cut the hair of “Info-6” (Kuzuryu Sachiko) in elementary school and had actually conducted a group verbal assault against Kuzuryu Sachiko and Kuzuryu Sayoko in junior high school. DID NOT HAVE A CRUSH ON YAMADA TARO. ♡_

Ayane snapped the book shut. So, this was the “everything” that Gogo had talked about? At what cost— _no_. Ayane did not allow herself to finish the thought. She turned back to her beloved. Yamada had fallen asleep, but there was slightly troubled expression on her face. Ayane was sure that beloved’s face would forever be peaceful in due time. Ayane turned off the television on that bit of hope and let the room sink in darkness.

❋

Her beloved was finally coming around and it was making Ayane’s heart soar. They had been watching the television together like happy couples usually do (from Ayane’s knowledge). “Aishi,” Yamada called out. She was still had to be administered a dosage of medicine to be immobilized for the day, so Ayane had set up some pillows to help the girl sit up and see the T.V. Finally, they were together and Yamada was actually speaking to her again.

“Yes, Yamada-senpai?”

“Do you… like this show?” They had been watching reruns of the original nineties anime series, _Magical Girl Miyuki_ , for the day. “I think I’ve only seen the remake, _Pretty Guardian Magical Girl Miyuki ♡ Gem Crystal Galaxy!!_ , never the original series…”

Ayane found her mouth hanging open for a moment. Senpai was actually making small talk with her, like happy couples did? “I…” Ayane cleared her throat.

“I’m just asking because everyone in Buraza Town seems to watch it because it used to be a local show before it got remade to be countrywide,” Yamada added.

“Personally, I have not watched it, but in Ayano’s room she has all of the original volumes of the manga. She had used the series as a part of her ‘normal’ high school girl façade.”

“You’re still reading Gogo’s journal?”

“It’s not a journal. Just notes she took.” Ayane found herself invested in the notebook since she woke up.

“Oh.” Ayane looked from the notebook and caught Yamada closing her eyes. She did that when she was thinking deeply about something, it seemed. “There’s… lore regarding the Aishi’s.”

“What is it?”

“I heard that in your family they have a single daughter for each generation to pass on the ‘legacy’ of… doing anything for the person that they like. I had heard this a long time ago from my uncle, the father of Yamada Taro, but... it can’t be true, right?”

“That is actually true.”

“Oh, okay. So, if it’s true, then why were you born?”

Ayane closed the notebook. “What do you mean?”

“Why were you born if they already had Aishi Ayano? I know that the excuse can’t be to ‘replace’ her because I know that you were born a year before they were executed—a year before the 1998 Akademi High School Incident.”

“I… don’t know actually.” Ayane had to place her hand on her chest. Her heart was melting. “But you’re so insightful for realizing an error that I have overlooked my entire life, Yamada-senpai. Forgive me for not being intelligent enough to have an answer to your question.”

“I-It’s fine. You don’t have to say things like that.” Yamada gave her the tiniest bit of a smile then, but it was everything. She really was finally starting to warm up. “I… would guess that you were adopted in some way, maybe? But that seems unpractical because you look just like Aishi Ayano. So… I don’t have an answer for that. Sorry. It was just something I had remembered and started to think about.”

_“The parents’ names are smudged too… I would suggest that you’re adopted, but obviously you’re an Aishi. You’re a carbon copy of Aishi Ayano. More things to figure out… I’ll tell you if I find anything out about this.”_

Ayane immediately opened up the notebook again. Maybe Gogo had written something down there. The notebook, though written in a backwards manner, was pretty organized and even had tabs. Ayane had reviewed over the tap of the 1998 Akademi High School motives and now Ayane saw that there was actually one labeled with her name and another with Gogo’s. Ayane went to her tab. Just as she thought, the errors regarding her birth certificates was there.

“Ayane.” Ayane slammed the notebook shut again. The hairs on the back of her neck were already standing on end from being so close to Yamada, but now she could feel goosebumps prickling her skin.

“F-First name,” Ayane stuttered out. Only Senpai could take away her entire composure with a single word.

“Can you move closer to me? You’re pretty far away.” Yamada was giving her a full-fledged grin. Ayane was absolutely dazzled. She felt like her heart was going to start. “Don’t keep me waiting, Ayane.” Ayane’s heart was definitely stopping. The cogs of her mind managed to turn just long enough so she could follow Yamada’s request. They were just nearly hip to hip now. “I was thinking if we’re going to be together, then we should be on a first name basis. I mean, we’re not in school anymore, right?”

“R-Right.”

“So, I’m no longer your upperclasswoman and you’re no longer my underclasswoman. And if we’re going to be in a living arrangement together, then we can no longer be ‘Aishi’ and ‘Yamada-senpai’ to one another. Just call me Hanako.”

“B-But I—”

“No excuses! Only call me and think of me as ‘Hanako,’ from now on, okay? I know that you think of and call everyone by their last names, but calling each other by our first names would make us closer, you know?

“It wouldn’t feel right. And I don’t deserve the right to call you by our first name. I don’t even have your forgiveness anymore…” Ayane dropped to her knees in front of Yamada. How many times has she done this now? It didn’t matter. Ayane would do it again and again. She would do _anything_ for Yamada’s forgiveness. “Please, forgive me, Yamada-senpai.”

“I won’t if you call me ‘Yamada-senpai’ again.” Yamada laughed. It was like… actual music to Ayane’s ears. “Besides, you actually never lost it in the first place. I should be the one apologizing to you for saying such mean things and being so dramatic with you. Now, can you please get up?” Ayane did as told. “Do you want a hug?” Ayane could only nod. “I can’t move my arms right now, so you’re going to have to do the hugging, sorry.”

“W-What if I hurt you?”

“I don’t care. Just hug me, Ayane.”

Ayane could feel her hands shake as she reached out. She still touched her beloved as if she was handling the finest china in the world. In a way, she was. Ayane’s heart was beating out of her chest as she willed herself to embrace the other girl. Yam—no, _Hanako_ felt so, so, _so_ warm. It was like touching a literal dream. Ayane had dreamed about doing so many things with Hanako before and now she was actually speaking with her and hugging her.

Ayane’s poor heart couldn’t take it.

“Closer,” Hanako murmured. “I can’t see you when you’re hugging my stomach.”

“I shouldn’t hug you any higher than this.”

“Please, Ayane?” Ayane had to obey. She had to muster all of her courage to move her arms higher up Hanako’s body. “I’m sorry I can’t hug you back right now. I wish I could.” Ayane couldn’t respond. “Thank goodness I could still move my lips though, right?” Ayane felt Hanako’s lips press against the side of her neck. Ayane’s entire body trembled. Still, she tried her best not to dig her hands into Hanako’s arms. Hanako gave her another kiss against the cheek. Ayane felt like she was holding on to dear life to Hanako.

“Y-Yamad—”

“It’s _Hanako_ now, Ayane.” Hanako’s breathy laugh brushed directly against Ayane’s cheek. “How long do I have until the paralysis wears off? I want to be able to do a favor for you.”

“T-T-Two hours.”

“Alright. Would you like another kiss?” Ayane nodded as fast as she could. “Alright, but you have to stop hiding your face in my shoulder first.” Ayane picked her head up again. “You’re super cute, Ayane.” Ayane wanted to say that Yamada was cuter, but she couldn’t catch her breath. Hanako gave another breathy giggle against Ayane’s cheek as she kissed it once more.

❋

“I-It’s not like I don’t trust you,” Ayane quickly said, “I’m just following the recommendations I got fro—”

“It’s fine, Ayane, it’s fine!” Hanako laughed again. She was smiling and laughing so freely. “I understand! If I was in your position, I would do the same thing, honestly.” Ayane had administered another dosage in Hanako’s legs once the medicine wore off, but she left her arms mobile. For Hanako’s “favor,” she asked for Ayane to help her get on the group and asked for Ayane to sit on the edge of the bed. Their roles were reversed: Hanako was on her knees in front of Ayane, but she wasn’t asking for forgiveness from Ayane’s understanding.

Hanako’s hands were on either side of Ayane’s legs. “Do I have permission to lift up your skirt?” Ayane was frozen. “Ah, Ayane, don’t feel so nervous.” She put a careful hand on Ayane’s knee. Her hands felt so warm. “Hey, remember when we were in elementary school and some boys kept calling me ‘ _Toire no Hanako-san_ ’ because one time I went to class with toilet paper stuck to the bottom of my shoe?”

“I remember.” Ayane’s voice was still wavering.

“And then remember how you had gotten the idea to use the nickname against them and we pranked them by painting my face red and hiding in the bathroom stall to scare them?” A smile was brought to Ayane’s face. It was a fond memory between the two of them. “Remember how scared they were? They thought that Hanako-san was really coming after them? They were like babies!” Hanako was laughing now and rubbing her hand up and down Ayane’s knees. “Alright, how are you feeling now? You don’t have to feel so nervous, you know. I’m not going to hurt you.” She took the hem of Ayane’s skirt and slowly began to lift it up. “It’s going to be fine, okay? Trust me.”

“I…” Hanako was peeling down her panties, but Ayane squeezed her knees together. She had to catch her breath. “Why are you doing this?” _I don’t understand_.

“We’re together now, right?” Ayane had just enough strength to nod. “So we should consummate this to be even closer.”

“C-Consummate? We haven’t even kissed on the lip—”

“This will be better than kissing.” Hanako gently pried Ayane’s knees apart. “I promise. This will make us feel even closer than kissing too. Isn’t this what you want?” Ayane wanted to beg Hanako to stop asking her questions. It had been so hard to speak before, but Ayane was growing near speechless now. “Alright, I’m going to start now. You can tell me to stop at any time.”

Ayane’s already scrambled mind became even more a muttered mess. If she thought that it was difficult to think and breathe before, than she should’ve thought again. First of all, it was an absolute battle just to stay upright. With Hanako rubbing and kissing along her thighs and… and _spreading her apart and using her tongue_ , it was hard to do anything.

Yet, this was what Ayane had always craved; a moment in her life when she could feel time stop. The universe was at a standstill and she and her beloved were in the center of it.

Ayane was brought back to reality for only a few seconds when she heard Hanako happily sigh. “Mm, Ayane-chan, you taste as cute as you look!” Ayane wished that her vision hadn’t cleared for the moment Hanako licked Ayane’s essence from her lips before she resumed her ministrations.

Ayane was going to have another heart attack because of this girl. She was sure of it. Hanako held her thighs down when the pressure inside of her spilled over and she was reduced to trembles. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t see. The only part of her body that was still moving was her legs. The only thing that was grounding Ayane was the feeling of Hanako’s hands holding onto her convulsing body.

“Ayane, how was it?”

Ayane fell back against their bed, gasping for air.

“Ayane?”

_It was wonderful, beautiful, magnificent, delightf—_

Ayane held her hand over her palpitating heart. She swallowed down the lump in her throat. She could feel her face heat up once she registered Hanako’s eyes on her. How embarrassing. Ayane sucked in a good breath before she sat up again and pulled down her skirt. “I should… return the favor.”

“Ah, you want to return the favor?” Hanako leaned her chin against Ayane’s knee. “You can help me up into the bed so we can cuddle. That will be enough of a favor for me.”

Ah, Senpai was so humble and unselfish.

❋

Ayane’s decision to allow her beloved to have freedom with her arms was met with overwhelming joy. Enough so that Hanako took it upon herself to hand feed Ayane breakfast for the morning. Hanako’s favor, a night of cuddling, and now being fed – all too much. Ayane was right in thinking that Hanako was the key to everlasting happiness.

They sat on the bed together, covers tucked tightly around them, with the television on. Hanako was watching a game show as she still absentmindedly fed Ayane. Ayane took the time to finally read her section in Gogo’s notebook.

Both birth certificates, the one that Ayane had and the one that Gogo found, were inside of the notebook.

> _07 / 02 / 14_
> 
> _Ayane, I have spent some time investing and uncovering this entire situation. I found a report from Kumamoto Medical Center saying that an “Aishi Rumi” had requested a birth certificate for a baby from a homebirth to be recertified and she had said that she was a professional who oversaw the birth._

Aishi Rumi had been the one to watch over Ayane when she was living in California with the American Aishi’s. Rumi was her mother’s, Aishi Ryoba, younger sister and had moved to California due to the one-daughter policy of the Aishi family. Ah… Now it all made sense. Ayane had been shipped to California also because of the one-daughter policy. She had only been moved back to Japan to live with Ryoba and Rokuro after Ayano and Yande were executed.

So, she really was Ayano’s replacement.

> _My attempt to un-smudge the names on the original birth certificate were unsuccessful, so I decided to see if I could find another version of it or anything about it by searching into the American Aishi household. The American Aishi household is apparently the house of rejected Aishi members ranging of mainly “accidental” children that are usually sons and second born daughters._
> 
> _I had used a similar resource like I had done for the fake captives regarding the Saiko Megami Murder Plot. I had someone steal the records from the American Aishi household and ship them to me for a good price. I have attached the photographs that the thief had taken for me. He had discovered a room filled with cabinets and that there is one labeled “Aishi Ayane.” Inside was an un-smudged version of your original birth certificate, a letter from Aishi Ryoba to Aishi Rumi asking for her to come to their elder’s home in Kumamoto to oversee your homebirth and to take you to California as soon as possible, and also three tapes: “Aishi Ayano’s confession” (13 / 03 / 98), “Aishi Ayano and Yande’s fourteenth birthday” (01 / 04 / 96), and “Aishi Ayane’s birth” (07 / 01 / 97). I have converted each tape to CD form for your viewing pleasure ~~even though none of this is pleasurable, actually~~. ~~I don’t know what to say about any of this.~~ I’m really, really sorry that you had to discover the truth this way._

The truth?

> _I recommend that you look at the information that I have recovered for you in this order: the clear copy of the birth certificate, Aishi Ayano’s confession tape, the tape of the twins’ birthday (warning: it’s graphic ~~at least… to me it is because I had a lot of trouble watching it due to… personal reasons~~ ), and then the video of your birth._

And that was all that was written on that.

“Oh,” Hanako said once Ayane moved, “you’re done eating?”

“For now, yes. I have to watch these CDs that are attached to the notebook.”

“Good thing the T.V. comes with a DVD player, huh?” Ayane nodded. She took the bowl from Hanako and set it aside on her way to the television. She set in the first CD that Gogo had recommended, Ayano’s confession, before she sat back on the edge of the bed and took out the clear birth certificate.

Ayane had always felt a faint curiosity toward Ayano’s confession. Ayane was hearing the same things that she heard from Yande’s confession tape, but she kept it on because Gogo had wanted for her to watch it for a reason. She looked over the birth certificate in the meantime. It was the same as the certificate that Gogo had found, but with the slots for the names of the parents un-smeared.

“Aishi Ayano” was written as the mother and “Aishi Yande” was written as the father for “Aishi Ayane.”

“—aid was wrong, I _am_ in love with Yamada Taro-senpai.” Ayane ripped her eyes away from the birth certificate to look up at the T.V. She heard Hanako’s breath hitch ever so slightly. It must have been from the mention of her cousin’s name. “My brother is very deceiving. I do not like to speak for too long, but I must address this possibility. Yande may have said that I am projecting my ‘true feelings’ for him onto Yamada Taro-senpai, but that is untrue. My feelings are genuine. Yande has two major issues: one where he genuinely does not understand if he hurts me and another where he fills in the blanks with his own answers, causing for him to have conflicting feelings about things.”

“What do you mean?” One of the people in the room asked. Ayano’s eyes didn’t even shift toward the person. She was still staring ahead, unwavering.

“For example: Yande had taken my feelings for Yamada-senpai as me ‘projecting my true feelings’ for him onto Yamada-senpai because he is ‘a better version of Yande,’ but this is untrue. Another example: in the beginning he had also convinced himself that he was ‘in love’ with Yamada-senpai too because Yamada-senpai is ‘perfect,’ so it led to some lack of clarity regarding his true feelings toward him. I had never questioned it because soon enough he had returned to his original mindset that is orientated around me.” Ayano’s eyes flickered down as she took a breath. “I wish that you had let me die,” she said offhandedly. There was a series of collective sounds of surprise around the room. “I know that he is just going to bother me again once we are reunited.”

“Do you two need to be separated?”

“No need. I would just prefer not to be around him.”

“We will also like to ask a question about an unspecified event regarding your fourteenth birthday.”

Ayano looked down again. “That piece of information must have been supplied to you all by Yande,” she said under her breath. Her eyes turned to the side as she continued, “That question is intrusive and I do not want to answer.” She looked directly into the camera. “May I conclude my confession now?”

“Yes, you may. Thank you for your time, Aishi-san.” Ayano said nothing in return. The video ended.

Ayane felt a gentle touch against her shoulder. “You are… the spitting image of Aishi Ayano,” Hanako whispered. Ayane leaned into her beloved’s touch.

“That isn’t true.”

“Hm? You don’t see it?”

“Ayano… has an artificial quality of beauty about her and a strong sense of femininity.” Ayane took a breath in. “In the pictures that I’ve seen of her she’s always wearing skirts, has her hair done, has a clear face, and naturally milky skin.” Ayane turned around so Hanako could see her face clearly. “Because of my disorder, my eyes have a yellow tinge around them. And I am much shorter than her.” Hanako was looking into her eyes now. Ayane was about to dissolve into pieces. How much she was speaking was embarrassing also. Hanako was just so easy to talk to that the words whether got choked up in Ayane’s throat or spilled out.

“I never noticed the yellow around your eyes. You have familial hypercholesterolaemia, right?”

“Right. Sometimes the yellow is more apparent.”

“It’s an… inherited disorder, if I’m remembering correctly, right?”

“Right,” Ayane said again, “it’s… inherited…” She clasped her hand over her heart. “I almost had a heart attack when I was younger because of it and I am on a strict diet,” she said. Her voice returned back to its usual robotic nature.

“Inherited? Do you know if Ayano and Yande had it?”

“No. They must have both been carriers… and passed it on to me.”

“W-What?”

“My looks—I look exactly like Ayano because my looks came directly from her.” She tightened her grip over her heart. “Even… Even my name is a direct combination of the beginning of ‘Ayano’ and the ending of ‘Yande.’”

“Ayane, what are you talking about?” Ayane shook her head.

“Forgive me for being unclear.” She moved to put in the next CD.

It was exactly as it said on the label: clips from the twins’ fourteenth birthday. It looked like the entire (Japanese side) of the family was there celebrating. The twins were acting natural with just their family around. No façades needed to be shown with just the Aishi’s around. The camera then shifted and moved to Ayano’s room as she opened up gifts from her mother and grandmothers, but it looked like it was soon forgotten about and just left recording on the side of the room because they left Ayano in the room without taking it.

Yande walked in. The sound of the door locking was audible. Ayano didn’t acknowledge him at all. He started hissing aggressive things toward her in a low voice, but Ayano didn’t even react. Suddenly, Yande had pinned Ayano down on the bed. It happened in the blink of an eye. He shoved Ayano’s undergarments into her mouth to gag her and held her wrists together in one hand and her leg in the other as he forced himself inside her.

Yande muttered something that the camera couldn’t pick up as he zipped up his pants and left the room. Ayano sat stock-still on the edge of her bed for a good couple of minutes. She then stiffly moved to throw her torn undergarments away in her room’s wastebasket and clean the fluids that Yande had left on her with a spare tissue.

The moment she changed into a fresh pair of underwear, her grandfather came into the room. “I can’t believe those silly gals left this in here, Yan-chan,” he said as he picked up the video camera. “Shit, it’s been recording this whole time?” He clicked his tongue as he turned the camera over in his hands. “I recorded the majority of the party for your mother anyway. This should be good. Where’s the damn button to stop recording? Ah, there it is.” The video stopped.

Ayane turned around at the sound of Hanako wheezing. “W-What wa—what was that?” She looked like she was about to vomit again. Ayane reached out toward her and her beloved fell into her arms. She gathered up enough courage to kiss the crown of Hanako’s head.

There was one more CD that Ayane had to watch. Hanako covered her ears and hid behind Ayane’s back as it played. Aishi Rumi was there, helping Ayano give birth in the Aishi elders’ household.

“I’m sorry for everything,” Aunt Rumi said. She held blanketed baby Ayane close to her chest.

“How long is to going to take for me to regain my strength?” Aunt Rumi sighed, probably because Ayano had completely ignored her.

“You have always had a natural sense of strength and speed like the firstborn Aishi daughters always seem to, so I’m going to say very soon. You didn’t gain too much weight during the pregnancy anyway and stayed pretty active.” Aunt Rumi moved the baby toward Ayano. “Would you like to hold her?” Reluctance was all over Ayano’s body language, but she took the baby anyway. “This baby is the spitting image of you when you were a baby. Your mother asked me to help with her birth also.” Aunt Rumi growled under her breath. “I can’t believe that she just _locked_ you away in the elders’ home and made you have a homebirth. Births are a lot safer in a hospital and I can’t believe she endanger—”

“I’m tired,” Ayano interrupted.

“I…” Aunt Rumi sighed. “Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it.” She moved toward the camera. “Can’t believe she made me record this.” The video ended.

“S-So you,” Hanako whispered against Ayane’s back, “are a… a _product_ of what happened between…?”

All Ayane could say was, “That seems to be so.” Something other than Hanako had managed to make her speechless. Hanako wrapped her arms around Ayane’s middle.

“Do you want to lay down?” Ayane shook her head. “Maybe… we should go outside and get some fresh air?” It took much insistence, but Ayane found herself picking Hanako up and walking her to the shoreline just outside the bungalow. Hanako used her hands to take off her socks and sprinkled pellets of sand on her toes. “I hope this makes you feel a little better,” Hanako murmured. Ayane looked out unto the setting horizon.

“It doesn’t matter,” Ayane let out. “That’s all in the past.”

“It’s still okay to be hurt by it.”

“I don’t want to be hurt by it.”

“Do you want another kiss?” How sudden. Ayane didn’t turn the offer down though.

❋

Finally, her beloved had completely succumbed to their affections for one another. Ayane had awakened to kisses against her neck. She still was craving for some lip to lip contact, but she couldn’t be too greedy. They ate breakfast together like a happy couple and then watched T.V. like a happy couple before Ayane took the time to read the “Hashimoto Saigo” tag of Gogo’s notebook.

> _07 / 02 / 14_
> 
> _Ayane, I will like to apologize. I realize that I went against my promise of being completely upfront with you, so I have decided to dedicate a section of this notebook explaining everything. I have attached a blueprint of the Kuzuryu household for you. Directly behind the house there is a dollhouse (not a toy dollhouse, but a life-sized one about the size of a bedroom). My mother, “Info-6,” makes me work inside of it. I have also attached my birth certificate where you can find my birth name, “Hashimoto Seigo,” is written and that my assigned gender at birth was “male.” My father had already left my mother when I was younger because he basically decided that he didn’t want to take care of me anymore. And then the discovery of my illness resulted in me spending a lot of time alone in elementary school and I was placed in the special education classes apart from the main class._
> 
> _At first, I had decided to dress “as a girl” because (when I was younger) I noticed that girls received better treatment in the special ed classes than the boys. But soon I found myself identifying more as “female” than “male” and then I decided to make it a permanent change, and “Hashimoto ‘Gogo’ Saigo” was ~~created~~ born. Now, my mother did not dislike it for transphobic reasons, but because my transition reminded her of Kaiyo Puru, a 1998 Akademi High School Rival._
> 
> _And then soon I became this figure that reminded my mother of her mishaps and everything that she hated. I was forced to work for everything I needed. I had to buy my own food and earn my stay my own home and I was punished severely for not doing what was “right.” She even started homeschooling me after elementary school so that it would be easier to control me. Did you notice when the president of the Cooking Club said that I usually eat with them? That’s because the combination of my age and disability makes it difficult for me to find actual work, so that’s why I turned to sources online and soon became an informant like my mother had been and used sources from the “dark web” also. (That’s why I had asked to take pictures and videos of the victims and auditioned them off.) When I had tried to tell my grandfather (the headmaster of Akademi), I received the worst punishment I have ever gotten. I was visited by three people. Then, I didn’t know them, but I managed to find their identities soon after: Kizawa Tatsuya (Kizawa “Kizana Sunobu” Suzuko’s father), Murasa Mina (Murasa “Shidesu” Osoro’s mother), and Saiko Mukuro (Saiko Megami’s father and the head of Saikou Corp). They all had... different reactions._
> 
> _Kizawa had been upset that I didn’t have “the right parts” and beat me. Because of my illness, it took a long time to heal. Remember that phone call he had after you helped his pack his boxes? It was with an underage girl from the high school in Shisuta Town. He took her back to his family home in Amakusa. Murasa Mina was different. Since Murasa Akira, her husband, has been gone for so long (he has been gone for five years due to emotional trauma around losing their daughter, Murasa Akabara, so violently) she’s been “craving some type of pleasure” and hasn’t been able to find someone to sleep with her. Now that her good friend, my mother, gave her an opportunity – me – she… couldn’t pass it up… And then Saiko Murasa hadn’t cared. He has actually been with young boys throughout his adulthood and was glad to take an offer up on me. ~~Sorry. I don’t want to talk about this anymore. But you should get the idea.~~_
> 
> _So I devised a plan to get them where it hurt: their children – and that’s when you came in. It is a divine coincidence that Kizana was obsessed with Kokona Haruka, infatuated with Yamada Hanako, and actually wanted to be slain by you. I was actually the one who called saying for Shiba Sayaka to walk home so that Yamada Hanako could go over when Shiba Shimako was going to commit suicide, which would give Murasa Osoro a reason to act on her already existing feelings for Yamada-senpai. Also, I knew that when given a situation to protect Yamada-senpai, Saiko Megami would have acted on her already existing feelings then too. I said all of this to clarify that your rivals were truly people who had feelings for Yamada Hanako, not people that had no connection to you and I manipulated you to eliminate._
> 
> _I was upset to discover that Kizawa Tatsuya did not care when Kizana had died, and he had even made jokes about her and was planning on using the money from her death to pay off his debt, but then I saw that during his first night back in Amakusa, he had to be hospitalized for drinking so much, so maybe he actually did care somewhat. Murasa Mina at least cares that Murasa Osoro is missing and she seems frantic and believes that Murasa Osoro met the same fate as Murasa Akabara. Saiko Megami was Saiko Mukuro’s pride and joy, so he was absolutely crushed from the discovery of her corpse at the school._
> 
> _I received even more punishments for snooping around in my mother’s things so that I could hurry and gather all of the information I needed. That’s why I was different during our last week together (I was surprised that you noticed and said something about it…). I’m sorry for not coming forward with the entire truth. There are some pictures that my mother had taken when it had happened. ~~She has pictures from each three times.~~ But I know that I couldn’t go to the authorities with it because they would look into me and probably based on… the type of person that I am and the things I’ve been doing, they would probably think I’m lying. My mother dangled the evidence right in front of me and locked me inside of my room until near dehydration when I tried to take it. So, I decided to give up. I decided to create a plan where you would successfully get Yamada-senpai, eliminate Saiko Megami, hurt Saiko Mukuro in the process, and then eliminate myself. I will like to clarify that this is nothing against you. I have decided to get rid of myself because… I can’t win. I’m showing my mother that she wins and I fold. Maybe I can finally make her happy by doing this…? I don’t know._
> 
> _I’m very sorry for everything, Ayane, and I hope that someday you can find it in your heart to forgive me for ~~the shit~~ everything I put you through._

“Were you two close?” Ayane slammed the notebook shut. Hanako turned the volume on the T.V. down. “Ayane?”

“I consider Gogo a companion,” Ayane honestly answered.

“Oh, you called her by her first name?” Hanako turned the remote control around her hands. “You’re so adamant about calling and thinking of people by their last names only.”

“I just couldn’t think of her as ‘Hashimoto.’ It never felt right.” Ayane stood up and stretched out her arms. “I’m going to go to Buraza Town to take care of some business.”

Hanako clicked the T.V. off. “What business? Tell me.”

“I am going to personally kill Murasa Mina, Saiko Mukuro, and Kuzuryu Sachiko and then go to Amakusa to kill Kizawa Tatsuya.” Hanako moved the covers off of her body, but only tumbled when she tried to step out of the bed. She must have forgotten that her legs were still paralyzed. Ayane moved to help her sit up.

“D-Don’t do that!”

“Why not?”

“Y-You’re not list—?” Hanako shook her head and cleared her throat. “Sorry. Just… it’s dangerous. Those are dangerous people. A-And… you already got rid of their children, getting rid of them too would be so cruel…” Hanako took Ayane’s sleeve. “And Kuzuryu Sachiko is Headmaster Kuzuryu’s daughter, right? What did Gogo-chan’s mother ever do to you?” Ayane couldn’t shake away the grip on her sleeve.

“She hurt Gogo.” Ayane couldn’t move with Hanako holding her.

“You…” Hanako bit her lip. “Can I come?”

“Of course.” A moment without Hanako felt like a century.

❋

Her beloved unfortunately had to be put to sleep in the backseat, but Ayane would be done before she woke up.

In order to get a ride in the first place, Ayane had to use the only working phone in the bungalow (a simple, untraceable cellphone locked up securely in a cabinet) and contact Yui Rio. Yui came around with a vehicle and in exchange, Ayane had to sneak into the school’s teachers’ lounge and take a picture of the answer sheets for Yui’s upcoming tests – child’s play to Ayane.

Operating a car was easy, especially at night with no one on the road. With the car hidden a block away from the house, Ayane lowered the brim of her hat over her eyes as she studied the blueprint of the Kuzuryu household. Yui had told her that only Gogo, her mother, and the headmaster lived in the house and the headmaster was out of town on business for the next week. Luck was back to resting on Ayane’s shoulders again it seemed.

Gogo had marked on particular sections that there were security cameras. A small note was written on the side that inside of the dollhouse, there was a way to configure and disable the cameras – more child’s play. Ayane used the guise of the night and shrubbery around the house to creep toward the dollhouse. It was pink with a pointy rooftop and heart-shaped windows and a cobblestone path lined with pink diamond hydrangeas, something out of a child’s dream. Gogo probably had received it when she was younger. How unfortunate that as she grew older, it became a house of horrors.

Past a tea set on a plastic table with plastic chairs were a large set of monitors and keyboards. There were two pieces of paper taped to largest monitor. They looked like ripped pages from Gogo’s notebook. Ayane breathed in and out for a good few seconds before she picked the papers up to read them. She had to keep her hand steady and vision and mind clear to understand what Gogo had left to communicate.

> _If you’re reading this, then I got something right! ♡ I predicted that there was an 82.7% to 90.1% chance that you would come here. That’s why I put the blueprint to my house and a way to disable the security cameras here in the dollhouse. Even though I decided to give up… I decided that maybe there I could have a little bit of hope in you? Because you’re happy now and you managed to reach your goal, so maybe you would still have me in the back of your thoughts and maybe do something that would make me happy? I don’t know. This is just on the off chance that… something finally good is happening to me, whether I’m alive or not._
> 
> _After writing my last entry in my notebook, I realized that you might be wondering some things, and I hope this doesn’t sound too calculating when I say that you were specially selected to help me achieve my goal. I could have done something like sabotage my attackers’ lives and go at them directly, but I wanted to get at them where it would hurt most: their children. And I wanted to put some extra salt in the wound by using you. You’re the biggest thorn in my mother’s side. You’re also a “reminder” of her mishaps, but she can’t take it out on you (only me). So having you help me was a way that would hurt both my attackers and my mother. And I had a good feeling, like I said, that you would go after my mother after reading what she had done to me and I know and only trust you to do this for me. I hope you understand._

Ayane understood.

> _Anyways, I have another blueprint for you. It’s of Yamada-senpai’s house. I recently noticed that there’s a secret room in the pantry of the kitchen and I had Yui Rio set up another camera in her house because of this. I noticed that Yamada-senpai went into this secret room every night (approximately 20:30 – 22:45) and every other morning (approximately 4:30 – 5:00). You never noticed during your personal times of observing her because you only got a single feed of one angle of her room. So whenever she left the room, you never knew where she was going. I only had one camera set up in her home then (so you know I’m not deceiving you – the second camera was a recent set up a week before the Saiko Megami Murder Plot). Now, we do know of the room, but I never went investigated inside because I was too busy and I thought that it would be something up for you to decide._
> 
> _I have supplied a weapon for you to use! It’s a gun!! Okay, not a real gun, but a blowgun. There are too many loops and bends to get an actual gun into Japan and also, you most likely do not know how to handle a gun and it would make too much noise. This blowgun is extremely easy to use though (I made sure to get something super simplistic and easy to aim with!) and I have supplied darts and gloves (make sure to wear them when handling the darts!). The darts will administer a toxin that is immediately effective once used by first completely debilitating the body (it’s similar to the drug that I have given you to use for Yamada-senpai only in that aspect) and then poisoning it. Have fun! ♡_

Ayane looked around her. The blowgun was nowhere to be found. Ah, wait. She walked to the tea set and opened up the kettle. There it was. A small, black _fukiya_ – a traditional blowgun – was inside. The darts were in various teacups and a pair of gloves was in a bowl. After she slipped on the guns and carefully put the darts in her jacket pocket, she tucked the blueprint of Hanako’s house in her back pants pocket. A secret room was an interesting concept, but Ayane was sure that Hanako would tell her the truth about it without a hitch. It was most likely something that Hanako’s parents left behind and that she had to check on, like a safe, prized family possession, or something or another.

After that thought, Ayane slipped undetected in the house in no time.

The Kuzuryu’s had a decently sized house, but that wasn’t important. Ayane let the goal of her mission echo in her mind as she navigated through the house. No tricks. No gimmicks. This was going to be a clean murder. She was going to get in and get out.

A light was on in the dining hall. Ayane slowly crept toward it and tightened her hand around the _fukiya_. Peeping into the room, she could see a woman with red hair and wearing a robe was sitting with her back to her at the table, typing away on a laptop. A mug of a steaming drink was next to her along with a stack of papers.

Was it really that simple?

Ayane carefully inserted a dart into the blowgun and held it to her mouth. Everything seemed so easy, _too_ easy. She aimed it directly at the back of the woman’s head. Well, Ayane was going to see just how much luck was really on her side. She shot three times. Two darts landed directly in the back of the woman’s head and one hit the exposed part of her neck. Ayane stood to her feet and waited for a moment. The woman fell over onto her laptop and knocked over the mug, getting the drink everywhere.

Ayane tiptoed over to the woman. It really couldn’t have been _that_ simple. Nothing ever was. But if Hanako could come to her senses and realize her true affections, then perhaps killing the Lost Info was _that_ simple.

Ayane held one dart in hand while she used the other to pick the woman’s head up. Her face was already a bluish-purplish hue, her mouth was full of froth, and her hands were trembling. “Y-Y-You!” She gasped out once her redden, watery eyes settled on Ayane. “F-Fuc—s-sh—!”

“Still talking?” Ayane murmured. She clicked her tongue and leaned down. “That’s no good.” She forced the vile woman’s lips apart and jabbed the dart directly into the hard palette of her mouth. While the woman could only spasm and let out more choked gargles, Ayane pulled out another dart. She had already played pincushion with Saiko though, she didn’t want a boring repeat. She began to look around the dining hall for something – _anything_.

“S-S-S…” Ayane raised an eyebrow but continued to look around.

“Hm? What was that? I didn’t quite catch that, Info-chan.”

“G-G-Go… G-Gog—”

“That’s enough.” Ayane didn’t want to hear it, and she had spotted what she wanted to do anyway. At the side of the long dining table was a tall rack of wine bottles. Ayane was going to have to be fast though. It was going to make a lot of noise, and she would be damned if she got caught, but she would be even more damned to not make it her personal pleasure to make sure that this bitch suffered.

Ayane moved toward the side of the wine rack and the woman’s eyes nearly rolled to the back of her head trying to follow her movements. She pushed the rack down. It did make a tremendous amount of noise, but it was worth it to see more garbled shrieks and watch the woman get crushed.

The image of the Lost Info pummeled into nothing by billions shards of glass and red upon redness was something that was going to be burned into Ayane’s mind forever. Gogo would be relieved. And maybe Ayano was watching and could finally let go of some torment. Her spirit was probably in the room then and there, studying the fragments and froth with her forever careful, calm eyes.

What a pleasant thought. A proud mother is a content one.

❋

Her beloved was _begging_. “Please, Yan-chan, _please_ let me come inside with you.” Ayane was split completely down the middle. Her heart yelled for her to sweep Hanako up into her arms and obey her beloved’s every command, but her mind was whispering something else – too quietly though, she couldn’t make it out clearly, so she obeyed her heart. With Hanako in her arms, Ayane crept into the Yamada household’s backyard. “The kitchen window is unlocked,” Hanako said, “just—yeah, right here is fine.” Ayane carefully climbed in through the window after Hanako. Her beloved looked absolutely ecstatic. Ayane leaned back toward the window and took a quick peep at the blueprint of the house using the moonlight. The secret room was indeed in the kitchen, through the pantry. The moment Ayane had set Hanako down, the girl started using her arms to drag herself toward the pantry.

“Do you need to get something in there?” Ayane easily walked toward the pantry door first. “I can get it for you.” Hanako wrapped her hand around Ayane’s ankle.

“J-Just, Ayane,” Hanako breathed out. She had most likely overexerted herself by crawling. Ayane wanted nothing more than to pick her up and hold her again. “I just need to check something. _Please_. It’ll only be a couple of seconds. And then… And then we’ll go back to the bungalow together…” Hanako gulped and tightened her grip. “Forever.”

“Forever?” Ayane whispered.

Hanako nodded so quickly that her hair fell into her eyes. “Yes, forever. Just please.” Ayane sank down to her beloved’s level, on her hands and knees. Hanako smiled as she gave a quick kiss against Ayane’s cheek. She moved back afterward. Ayane still wanted more. Hanako only gave kisses on the cheek and neck. Every dream she had now was of pressing her lips to Hanako’s. But soon – _soon_ it had to happen. And patience was a virtue. Ayane could demonstrate it now by waiting for Hanako to come back.

Disrespecting her beloved’s privacy would be the worst offense, so Ayane sat with her arms crossed by the pantry door, just out of touch from the moonlight leaking through the window they had crawled through.

 _But…_ Ayane moved to her knees. _Would it be disrespectful if I checked to make sure that she wasn’t trying to leave me?_ Hanako really melted Ayane completely, but Ayane’s mind was whispering for her not to be so gullible. Things really weren’t that easy – not all the time.

So Ayane went through the pantry, and through the door hidden behind the shelves, and made her way to be reunited with her beloved. It was a short passageway, which was good, as Ayane didn’t want Hanako to have to drag herself for too long to get to her destination. The place smelled interesting. In fact, there was an almost clinical scent to it all. Yes, it carried the air that hospitals did, oddly. Perhaps the Yamada’s kept first aid equipment in the secret room? It would make sense if the room was some type of shelter that held supplies.

Ayane first saw Hanako. Her beloved had shifted herself so that she could rest on her knees. She looked deathly pale. Her hands were digging into the skin of her thighs. There would surely be indentations from such an act. Ayane rushed over to her. Hanako’s eyes widened and she reeled back. “W-What are you doing in here?!” _This…_

“I thought that you have gotten over this.” There was something different in Hanako’s eyes. It was the same look that she had given Ayane when during their first day together in the bungalow, but that had been righted since then, so why were they back to square one? Hanako had accepted her true feelings for Ayane and they were living happily ever after now. _This is…_

“I’ll be out in a second, Aishi! Just get out, please!” _Aishi._

“Hanako…” _Aishi, did you really think things would be that simple?_

“I told you this was stupid.” Ayane learned a new emotion: surprise. She stepped further into the secret room. The clean, clinical scent made sense. There were tubes and wires and packs of liquid and needles everywhere, all surrounding their centerpiece: a chair. A chair with a little girl sitting in it, all hooked up this and that way with various tubes. No, it wasn’t a little girl. It was just a small girl, small because her growth had been stunted. “You shouldn’t have come for me,” the girl continued. Her voice… Ayane thought she would never hear it again. “Hello again, Ayane-chan,” she said in the same quiet tone. “I thought that we would never see each other again either.”

Ayane learned another emotion: confusion. “How…?” She looked back and forth between the girl and a quivering Hanako. No, it couldn’t be. “This can’t be—”

“But it is,” the girl interrupted. “Did you forget me? Then I’ll introduce myself. I’m Kuwata Yukari.” Ayane must have had an awestruck way still stuck to her figure. “Still having trouble? Then, I’ll refresh your memory: Sakura Elementary, victim number one of Aishi Ayane’s reign of terror—or, _thought_ to be victim number one.” Kuwata was sitting at an angle her seat. In the low light, Ayane could just make out the scar on the girl’s head. It was unmistakable. That voice, scar, and look – all one-hundred percent, genuine Kuwata Yukari. Kuwata looked downright ghastly though. Her former glossy, dark hair was now tangled and lost its sheen and her once lively eyes had deep, dark circles surrounding them. Her head leaned toward the side and the side of her mouth hung down also. One eye stayed unfocused too. Judging from those things and the way that she was sitting, she was paralyzed on one side of her body, opposite the side that Ayane had stabbed her all those years ago.

Ayane looked back and forth between Yamada and Hanako. She learned one last emotion: betrayed.

❋

Kuwata was still a mistake. She had still managed to come between everything Ayane wanted and _now_ was hammering the final nail in the coffin. She was really just an overcooked vegetable. It would’ve been better to put the bitch out of her misery in Ayane’s opinion, but Ayane’s thoughts didn’t matter – _never_ mattered. In a blind rage, she had pumped her formally beloved with so much medicine – no, they were _drugs_ ; Ayane had tried to soften the truth by calling it “medicine,” but they were illegally manufactured, inhumane drugs that had been purchased online – that it was a miracle that she could somehow still move her lips. She was begging for mercy, or blubbering really. Her words were rushed and ridden with sobs. Ayane kept both of her hands on the steering wheel though, focused forward. She couldn’t bear to waste her time laying her eyes upon the two traitors in the vehicle.

“Ais—Ayane, please! Please don’t kill us!” Yamada begged. She was the definition of an emotional wreck, while Kuwata was surprisingly calm.

“How did you learn how to drive? You should be only seventeen years old.” Ayane chose to ignore the both of them.

“Ayane, Ayane!” Hanako continued to yell. “Please, don’t do this! I-I-I love you! We can spend forever together, just like you always wanted! Just, please, please, _please_ don—”

“Shut up.” Ayane snapped.

“You d-d-don—please, don’t kill me. God, please don’t kill me.” Hanako’s immobilized body was racked with sobs. “I don’t want to die. I can’t die. I’m too young. I don’t want to di—Ayane, please don’t kill me, please!” She took in a deep breath. “W-We can be together forever! Please! I-I can do even more stuff for you. I can give you more favors—anything you want, I’ll do it! J-Just ask!”

“You’re just…” Ayane saw the lighthouse ahead of them. “You’re just the same. It’s the same thing all over again.” Ayane should’ve known when Yamada’s mood switched up so suddenly, it wasn’t “acceptance,” she was lying. She should’ve known when Yamada would readily give her a “favor” instead of a kiss on the lips.

“You’ll never have to be alone again, Ayane! I’ll do everything I can to show you I love you!”

“I’ve been alone for all of my life. I don’t need you.” She drove onto the sad. “You kept Kuwata aliv—”

“I-I didn’t have a choice! They managed to revive her in the hospital, b-but her parents—they just abandoned her! I-I _had_ to take her in, Aishi, I couldn’t just leave her!”

“There was a funeral.”

“Fake,” Kuwata said. “The funeral was fake. The announcement to the class that I was dead was fake. Everything: fake. I’ve been staying in Hana-chan’s secret room in her pantry for all of these years.” Ayane clenched the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white. “We wanted to make sure that there was no chance of you even thinking that I was alive. Hana-chan didn’t want you ruining everything that she worked so hard for.”Ayane didn’t want to hear her voice anymore. She stopped the car to reach into the backseat and wrap her hands around the girl’s neck. She squeezed and squeezed and squeezed until Kuwata’s eyes popped and Ayane left blackening bruises on her throat and Hanako screamed even louder.

“AISHI, PLEASE DON’T HURT HER.”

“I’m ‘Aishi’ again?” Ayane made sure to press her thumbs into the marks she had made for good measure. Kuwata’s voice was too hoarse and soft to even make too loud of a sound. It was akin to killing a kitten almost; too soft, too quiet, too moldable. “These past few days together were a lie.” A statement, not a question.

“A-A-Aishi.” Ayane moved herself back to the front seat and started the car again. It was a little rough driving on the sand, but it would be over soon. “Please, please, pleas—”

“Begging won’t save you now.” And still, it would be so easy to just reach over and strangle Yamada too, but… Ayane couldn’t do it. Her heart would beat too fast and burst into a pulpy, fleshy mess if she did such a thing. She didn’t understand how Ayano could just slice through Yamada Taro like it was nothing. Ah, not quite – Ayano had tried to kill herself afterward and was revived (and wished that she hadn’t been). Things were the same, yes, but Ayane was going to make sure that there was one key difference between the Akademi High School Lockdown Slashing and what she was doing. She was going to personally ensure that there were no chances of survival or revival.

So, she plunged the car – the car containing two filthy backstabbers and a damned fool – into Buraza Town’s wonderful ocean.

“N-N-No! No, no, no, no—!” Yamada’s voice was reduced to meaningless gurgling. Even with millions of frantic bubbles surrounding her and her hair flying this way and that, Yamada still looked beautiful. Yamada-senpai truly was perfect right until the bitter end.

Ayane only had half a mind to let go of the steering wheel and hold on to the strap of her seatbelt instead as more and more water seeped into the vehicle and into her nose and mouth and lungs and stomach. She slowly (everything about being underwater rendered the world into slow-motion) turned away from Yamada’s desperately gasping form and looked ahead. Everything was a dark murkiness, but they were heading somewhere where the moonlight would no longer be able to reach them.

Ayane’s mind briefly recalled the cheesiness from shows and movies that she had absorbed during her life, about how people’s lives always flashed before their eyes before they died or thought they were going to die. It wasn’t a thought she had when she had killed Kizana, Murasa, Saiko, Info-chan, Kuwata, and Yamada. It wasn’t really a thought that she was having now, but it was still there. Maybe the only reason why the thought existed was because she was making it so.

But her life had been so… plain, so uneventful and boring – up until Hashimoto Gogo came into it.

Everyone else’s flashbacks were probably so exciting and maybe even chill worthy, but not Ayane’s. She saw not flashbacks, but things that she wanted to see: Ayano and Gogo. Eating with them, sitting quietly with them, and getting rid of anyway that came in between them. Ayane closed her eyes. Yeah, she would like that. Her lungs felt like they had been set on fire.

 _Fire_.

Suddenly, Kizana screaming from the depths of orange and white inferno pierced Ayane’s mind, then Murasa tangled up in ropes and falling from the top of a lighthouse, then Saiko pinned by the hands to a spider’s web, and then Kuwata with millions of hands around her throat and a knife stuck to her head… and then Yamada with bubbles surrounding her and water stuffing up her body like a faucet.

And then

 _nothing_.


End file.
